The use of multimedia to teach International Relations Theory Theory is extremely necessary for the good development of future practitioners. There is no cognitive analysis without theory and, to be recognised as a “serious” science, International Relations must have theories more and more developed and studied.
The problem raised is that not all pupils are interested in studying theory. Those pupils will either quit the course for not finding a cognitive practise to work with or will be less prepared practitioners. What can teachers do?
The first part of this paper has tried to show the importance of teachers understanding the new demands brought by their students. Technology has made it very easy to bring new assets to class and new experiences and interest might be born from that. On that sense, teachers have got to look for a new way of bringing students' attention to theory. Students might be asked to theoretically analyse three different films by using theories of International Relations. At first, there might be a fear that students would just be in class to watch the film and after that they would not take part on the discussions.
The whole idea of the course is to bring students' attention to the study of theories by usage of mass media, and they might be more interested in theories after the experiment.
Films, the open lectures, the use of multimedia resources can help students visualise what they have read on the literature. By doing so, theory becomes a little closer to real life for them. The exercise here is to help them to think abstractly and see theory outside the books. One can explain the anarchical environment of the system by using a billiard board as an example or can simply show a short film with a group of children without any adults nearby disputing who commands the group. Films can be a good source of theoretical analysis because, even though some of them are simply not real, a parallel to reality can be done, so pupils can identify both what the suppositions for each film theories would expect and how that situation would probably be dealt in real life. The secret is to look for films that can exemplify a given theory or concept or even help them arise questions to later be theoretically analysed.
The use of new media is just another tool in trying to bring pupils' attention to the association between theory and practise.
Being theories a milestone for International Relations studies and being students not the same they were before the technological boom, teachers are asked now much more than a couple of years ago.
They shall be more than instructors, but also tools on the hands of the students to show them how theory and practise are much closer to them than what they think.
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