Morality Play: Old Game Gives us a New Way to Teach Ethics | Christopher Robichaud | TEDxWalthamED

My TEDx talk will share the simulation design work that I have been doing at the Harvard Kennedy School, which won me the Innovation in Teaching Award in 2015. Tasked with creating an intense, day-long simulation for policy students that allowed them to exercise leadership skills and practice negotiation strategies while confronting ethical dilemmas, I turned to some of the design elements found in old school tabletop roleplaying games, like Dungeons & Dragons. The result has been a very successful simulation that now runs in various executive education programs and core courses at the Harvard Kennedy School, and has been used as well at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the Harvard Business School, and the Harvard Extension School. The talk will provide details on how to use tabletop game design as an interdisciplinary teaching tool, and offer some of the specifics of the simulation I put together.

Christopher Robichaud is Lecturer in Ethics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He received his doctorate in philosophy from MIT. His interests surround ethics, political philosophy, and social epistemology, with a focus on examining the role of truth and knowledge in well-functioning democracies, and on understanding what the post-truth age of politcs is. Dr. Robichaud has been a member of the faculty since 2006. Previously, he has taught philosophy courses at Texas A&M University, the University of Vermont in Burlington, and Tufts University.
Dr. Robichaud’s TEDx talk will share the simulation design work that he has been doing at the Harvard Kennedy School, which won him the Innovation in Teaching Award in 2015. Tasked with creating an intense, day-long simulation for policy students that allowed them to exercise leadership skills and practice negotiation strategies while confronting ethical dilemmas, he turned to some of the design elements found in old school tabletop roleplaying games, like Dungeons & Dragons.


This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx