Applying practices from online role-playing games with multiple players, we employed Reacting to the Past (RTTP) pedagogy to engage students at several universities in a multi-week experience. As a pedagogical method, RTTP is ripe for potential use across an array of leadership education initiatives, including interinstitutional collaborations.
In this essay, we describe this student learning and engagement experience as well as address innovations and potential applications in similar leadership education contexts, preliminary student and facilitator feedback and lessons learned.
As part of The Justice Challenge’s eight-week Colloquium, students developed an understanding of food justice, systems thinking and transdisciplinary collaboration, as well as skills in perspective-taking, persuasion and teamwork. Through the RTTP gameplay, students engaged firsthand with multiple perspectives and goals, differing ways of interpreting information and situations, diverse factions and political pressures.
We believe our use of RTTP in The Justice Challenge is novel for two reasons. First, although RTTP fits remarkably well with the basic philosophy of honors education, it is less explored as a pedagogical approach in leadership education contexts. Second, our use of RTTP in an online, multi-institutional program highlights it as a useful pedagogical tool to foster leadership learning that can work regardless of group size or modality.
Developed at Barnard College by Carnes (2014), Reacting to the Past (RTTP) involves assigning students roles (i.e. characters) with associated goals in a real-world historical context. Each participant’s task is to pursue their character’s assigned goals by collaborating or competing with other players via scene-based role-playing. The game’s outcome is not predetermined and may not align with historical specifics (RTTP, 2023). Instead, students are asked to behave in ways aligning with their character’s views and positions while attempting to achieve those characters’ desired outcomes through communication tactics and strategies they devise (e.g. speeches they prepare and deliver rather than simply reciting ones given by their character in the past). Additionally, facilitators provide background and serve as resources, but the role-playing itself is directed by students (RTTP, 2023).
For eight weeks in fall 2023, honors students from multiple universities across the United States of America (USA) participated in The Justice Challenge’s online Colloquium, which devoted portions of six sessions to RTTP preparation and gameplay. Much like leadership education, honors education lends itself to the marriage of expertise and application toward enacting needed change (Chancey, Fine, & Lease Butts, 2019). The Justice Challenge is designed to foster the development of critical skills in systems thinking, transdisciplinary collaboration and leadership to address the world’s most complex problems (Bott-Knutson et al., 2022, 2023). The Justice Challenge expects students to exercise leadership to address a grand societal challenge – in its first year, food justice.
Immersive simulation is a signature pedagogy in preparing future leaders (Gilbert, Voelkel, & Johnson, 2018), and game-based learning is a recognized approach to teaching leadership skills (Sousa & Rocha, 2019). Although games have not been used extensively in undergraduate leadership education (Jenkins, 2012), the experience of our students suggests that role-playing game experiences might be a useful teaching tool for inviting students to exercise leadership that engages the world’s wicked problems. In this essay, we describe student learning from their RTTP engagement, especially focusing on innovations and potential applications in leadership education contexts, as well as student and facilitator feedback to improve future endeavors.
The Justice Challenge and leadership learning outcomes
In fall 2023, the inaugural cohort of Justice Challenge participants, 96 students from 19 USA universities, gathered online to begin their program. Participants engaged in RTTP pedagogy (Watson & Hagood, 2018), where they were challenged to develop and apply leadership skills while simultaneously increasing knowledge related to food justice. Within the context of The Justice Challenge’s learning outcomes related to participants’ leadership skill development, RTTP’s immersive game structure embodies several high-impact educational practices, such as learning communities and collaborative assignments (Kuh, 2008), that support the leadership-focused learning objectives of the program: communication, evaluating solutions and perspective-taking, among others. The specific leadership-related learning outcomes of The Justice Challenge that we endeavored to meet through RTTP include students’ abilities to “collaborate across dimensions of diversity;” “work productively with uncertainty, ambiguity and failure... generate... solutions to address the problem” and “effectively communicate the nature of complex problems and potential solutions” (Bott-Knutson et al., 2022, p. 16).
We believe our use of RTTP is novel for two reasons. First, although RTTP fits remarkably well with the basic philosophy of honors education (Cobane & Jennings, 2017), it is less explored as a pedagogical approach in leadership education – despite both role-playing’s utility as a teaching tool in the field of leadership studies (Tazbak & Lebron, 2017) and RTTP’s invitation for participants to exercise several leadership skills. Trepidation about facilitating role-playing without an intentional structure or student buy-in is understandable; RTTP is an established, approachable means of facilitating student learning, and its exploration of historical leadership inflection points is engaging. Sharing how we used RTTP with a specific focus on students’ leadership learning highlights its utility for leadership educators and for engaging an array of student groups (e.g. within and beyond honors) in numerous leadership education contexts.
Second, our use of RTTP in an online, multi-institutional program highlights it as a useful pedagogy to foster leadership learning regardless of group size or modality. Although the use of RTTP in face-to-face courses is well documented (e.g., Webb & Engar, 2016), there are some intrinsic limitations to scaling the experience (Bledsoe, Maynard, & Richardson, 2018). Since its introduction in 2001, use of RTTP pedagogy has grown (Watson & Hagood, 2018); however, few publications examine using it in large-classroom or online settings. Watson and Moskal (2018) described effectively using one game with 100 students by assigning the same role to multiple students. Two studies reported on using RTTP in an online setting in Australasia. Buchanan and Palmer (2017) reported no significant learning differences between face-to-face and online RTTP experiences for the same cohort. Selway and Buttsworth (2020) found that an online, asynchronous RTTP experience produced more engagement with peers’ ideas and arguments. Although RTTP was initially conceived as pedagogy for small in-person courses, an impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was the modification of some RTTP courses to an online methodology (McFall, 2020). Building upon this work, we address the issues of scaling and modality shift, demonstrating the applicability and power of an online, larger-scale application of RTTP.
Leadership education framework. Coordinators of The Justice Challenge designed learning outcomes that expect students to take intentional action by leveraging relevant content knowledge, a leadership education imperative (Uhl-Bien, Marion, & McKelvey, 2007). At its foundation, The Justice Challenge is rooted in complexity science, as wicked problems are fundamentally complex. Today’s key challenges are not (if they ever were) monocausal, easily solved or confined to one context. Considered from the framework of complex adaptive systems (CAS), RTTP games, including the one used in this case study, bring together and illuminate the interplay of multiple CAS (e.g. factions), mirroring the web of interwoven CAS in which our lives are lived (Osborn & Hunt, 2007), each with its own structures (e.g. hierarchy and internal constraints). However, as described in complexity leadership theory, leaders emerge not necessarily based on these structures but rather dynamically based upon their own ingenuity and innovation (Plowman et al., 2007; Uhl-Bien et al., 2007).
Illustrating complexity leadership theory tenets of creativity, adaptation and learning (Uhl-Bien et al., 2007), RTTP players adapt, leaders emerge and decisions transpire based on actions taken within the game. No two groups engaging in an RTTP game enact the same behavior, which in turn differentially influences the game’s outcome. In debrief, students discussed the context and character dossiers as well as their improvisation based on interpretations of roles, objectives and others’ behavior. As organizers of the RTTP experience, we observed different leadership strategies in the two parallel sessions; students were assigned roles imbued with particular authority associated with specific positions, but the students’ agency in enacting their roles resulted in an evolution of leadership and influence. RTTP participants experiencing variance in outcome is precisely the point in learning about leadership: outcomes are mutable, even those associated with grand social problems, and emergent leaders can influence them (Komives et al., 2016).
In addition to developing students’ ability to exercise leadership around complex challenges, The Justice Challenge team expected the experience would develop students’ interpersonal capacities to exercise leadership more broadly. The ability to engage meaningfully with others and collaborate is an important leadership foundation, especially toward achieving social change (Komives et al., 2016; Skendall, Ostick, Komives, & Wagner, 2017), and developing such skills remains crucial for preparing the next generation of leaders (Riggio, 2014). In a cross-national, all-online educational setting where some instructor content is needed to provide intellectual scaffolding, RTTP was the pedagogy of choice to spur student participation and growth through direct engagement with one another. RTTP was intentionally selected for our online approach to The Justice Challenge because it is a well-established approach in honors education that simultaneously works well in fostering growth across several leadership competencies, such as systems thinking, problem solving, interaction and communication (Seemiller, 2014). RTTP gave students the opportunity to learn about the complexity of food justice by adapting to role constraints and game settings, working with one another to pursue aligned goals within administrative structures established by the student leading the game and creating through improvisation and bricolage in adaptive approaches.
Reacting to the Past as leadership pedagogy
We used the “Food or Famine, 2002: The Debate over Genetically Modified Crops in Southern Africa” (Henderson, 2022) RTTP game as part of the Colloquium, an eight-week course via Zoom as part of a year-long Justice Challenge experience. In this game, players are confronted with a famine that extends across several nations in southern Africa. At issue for the students playing the roles of leaders of African nations is whether to accept or decline the USA’s offer of genetically modified (GM) corn. African leaders’ acceptance of GM corn would provide relief in terms of immediate food needs and likely prevent cases of starvation, but it is simultaneously likely to lead to agricultural export restrictions from the European Union (EU), whose ban of GM products would limit future trade revenue potential. Situational specifics vary across nations, as does influence by other actors, and although African leaders may hold complex viewpoints based on an array of factors, they ultimately need to cast their vote in favor or opposed. Whereas students playing the roles of leaders of African nations effectively serve as the adjudicators of the game’s outcome, remaining students inhabit roles – scientists, politicians, chief executive officers, nongovernmental organization representatives, etc. – advocating for the positions of either the EU or USA, who espouse anti- or pro-genetically modified organism (GMO) bents, respectively. Through the game, participants become familiar with the EU and USA positions, as well as attempts by corporations to influence public views and policy. In addition, they become acquainted with scientific understanding of GM foods at the time as well as public debates surrounding health and safety (Henderson, 2022).
In the Colloquium, participating students enrolled in one of two sections, Tuesday evenings or Wednesday afternoons, and each played the game separately. Multiple students in each section were assigned to most of the game’s 29 roles, each with dossiers, relevant research articles (from at or before 2002) and sample communications (e.g. speech transcripts and op-eds) authored by their real-life counterparts. Students' assigned shared roles reported connecting outside of the Colloquium to synchronize their execution and co-develop strategy. The size of this RTTP facilitation and its synchronous online play are novel applications of this pedagogy.
Preparation, gameplay and debrief took about eight hours over six weeks. We introduced RTTP and the science underlying GMOs in the first preparatory week. We provided background on the geopolitical situation in Southern Africa in the early 2000s and assigned roles to students in a second pre-gameplay week, after which students met with their faction (pro- or anti-GMO) to prepare for the start of gameplay.
For the first week of gameplay, all students, except those playing the leaders of African nations, prepared an outline for a two-minute speech based on their character’s expertise and perspective. A pair of students in each section acted as game moderators, managing the presentation of speeches during gameplay. Factions met again in the second week of gameplay to discuss strategies for persuading the leaders of African nations to adopt their perspectives, and in the third week of gameplay, each faction had an audience with the leaders.
Gameplay ended in the fourth week after each leader of an African nation voted on behalf of their country to accept or reject GM corn. Voting was followed by discussion of the real-life outcome, reflection on how gameplay results may have diverged from what actually transpired and an update on GMO science since 2002. Students in one section were treated to a question-and-answer session with Andrew Natsios, Administrator for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) during this crisis in 2002. Students in the other section watched excerpts from the documentary film “The Price of Aid,” which featured interviews with African leaders portrayed in the game.
Reflections on the RTTP experience
At the end of the Colloquium, a survey question asked students to reflect on which assignment had the greatest impact on their learning. The RTTP experience had an associated position paper that asked students to prepare a persuasive, evidence-based speech either to sway the opinion of African leader players on the merits of accepting or declining GM corn or, for students playing the roles of African nation leaders or moderators, a speech outlining their initial positions. The RTTP position paper was one of seven survey options, which then asked students to elaborate on how their selected assignment contributed to their learning. In total, 72 of the 96 Colloquium participants, who completed the survey and consented to their responses being used in research, yielded a response rate of 75%. Of the seven Colloquium assignments, the RTTP position paper was identified by a plurality of respondents (n = 21; 29.17%) as the assignment that made the greatest contribution to their learning. In their written responses, students reported appreciating gaining perspective-taking skills through adopting an assigned position, the invitation to conduct relevant external research on food security and role-playing’s ability to make academic learning relevant via interpersonal practice. Further, and perhaps most heartening and relevant to The Justice Challenge’s leadership learning outcomes, students reported co-realizing real-world implications of food policy and stakeholder action in efforts to propose solutions to wicked problems. Although not derived from a full complement of assessment data, initial results suggest that the RTTP experience had beneficial leadership learning outcomes that may be of interest to other leadership educators.
When playing the “Food or Famine, 2002” game, students embraced the positions of individuals they portrayed. All students prepared a written argument and delivered a speech stating their position in preparation for gameplay, and this work received positive evaluations from facilitators. Evaluation of the students’ written arguments and survey responses revealed that students researched the science of GMOs, the 2002 famine in Africa and their characters’ and other players’ positions. Through an engaging pedagogical approach, students developed several skills that their performance and reflections indicate better equipped them to exercise leadership toward addressing wicked problems. One issue noted while assessing written arguments was that some students cited references unavailable in 2002. Although facilitators verbally requested that students confine their research to sources available prior to 2002, it was not stated explicitly in the written directions for crafting the speech; therefore, we made notes to edit the prompt for future iterations of the Colloquium.
We learned leadership lessons ourselves, too, through facilitating RTTP. In preparation to lead the RTTP portion of the Colloquium, The Justice Challenge coordinators learned about the methodology from trained leaders and played an RTTP game during a team-building workshop, developing our facilitation skills and ability to empower students to engage with complex leadership challenges in which there is no one best solution. Based on their engagement, we believe RTTP allowed students to practice and integrate systems thinking, transdisciplinary collaboration and other leadership skills. Given greater interest in online coursework and engagement since the COVID-19 pandemic, similar experiences may be helpful to other educators whether they are leading an online RTTP experience for students in one course on one campus or distributed across multiple schools.
Conclusion
Using RTTP pedagogy in the online arena sparked student engagement and learning across multiple institutions. Not only did students deepen their understanding of food insecurity and wicked problems, but they also enhanced their understanding of perspective-taking, persuasion and the interplay of ideas and positions – all valuable leadership skills. Through this experience, students saw firsthand how arguments and actions shape outcomes and thus the future. Further, as facilitators, we were buoyed by seeing students engage with history, ideas and each other to accomplish goals. When we envision these students reacting to the future, we are hopeful that their experience with systems thinking, transdisciplinary perspectives and teamwork allows them to cultivate paths to surmount seemingly intractable problems.
We thank the honors student participants in the fall 2023 RTTP experience for their outstanding contributions. We also thank other collaborators in The Justice Challenge: Mark Andersen (University of Texas--Rio Grande Valley), Heidi Appel (University of Houston), Graham (Geb) Bastian (South Dakota State University), Rachel Budowle (Virginia Tech), Joseph Cassady (South Dakota State University), Kathy J. Cooke (California State University, Los Angeles), Kaetlyn Cordingley (University of Montana), Karen Hickman (Oklahoma State University), Jyotsna Kapur (Southern Illinois University), Paul Knox (Virginia Tech), Timothy Nichols (University of Montana), Kim Niewolny (Virginia Tech), Andrea Radasanu (Northern Illinois University), Noah Roerig (South Dakota State University), Daniel Roberts (Virginia State University), Adam Stroud (Oklahoma State University), Susan Sumner (Virginia Tech) and William Ziegler (Binghamton, SUNY).
This work was supported by the intramural research program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Higher Education Challenge (No. 2023-70003-38772). The findings and conclusions in this publication have not been formally disseminated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and should not be construed to represent any agency determination or policy.
