Crossing a Virtual Divide: Wargaming as a Remote Teaching Tool

Abstract

In Fall 2020, political science instructors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) partnered to conduct a virtual-learning wargame centered on Taiwan. This article presents its design and execution along with the results from pre- and post-game surveys and interviews with the participants that were conducted to measure the achievement of its learning objectives. The game conduct and empirical results demonstrate two main findings. First, wargames are effective tools of active learning that aid in classroom instruction and grab the attention of students—even over Zoom—in a way that traditional methods of instruction do not. Second, wargames can bridge gaps between different fields. The MIT–NPS wargame tackled the civil–military divide by bringing together military officers at NPS and academics from MIT. These results show that wargaming holds promise as a bridge-building tool of instruction that can engage students, scholars, and practitioners in achieving positive learning outcomes.