teaching

How to Teach Model UN: Country Research

by Ryan on September 30, 2011 · 12 comments

This is my second post on “How to Teach Model United Nations.” Every week, I will share teaching tips, lesson plans, and classroom activities on various Model UN topics and skills.

This series is geared towards US-based high school and middle school teachers who are new to Model UN, interested in starting a club at their school, or looking for ideas on how to use Model UN in the classroom.

Which country will you represent at your next Model UN conference?

When you and your students register for a Model UN conference, one of the first pieces of information you’ll receive from the conference organizers is your country assignment, e.g. what country (or countries) your students will represent at the conference.

This information also tells you what committees you’re in and what topics you’ll debate. Once you know your country, your students can start preparing for the conference. And students who are representing the same country (most likely all of your students if you’re leading a small club) can work together and pool their research efforts.

There are various reasons for learning how to research a country:

  • As representatives of their assigned country, your students should know something about their country! Especially the most basic facts: where it is, who the leaders are, how many people live there, etc. You lose credibility in committee if someone asks you these basic questions and you just don’t know.
  • Many Model UN conferences require students to submit a position paper before the conference. In this paper, students will describe their country’s policies and proposed solutions regarding the topics they will debate at the conference. The first step to writing this paper is researching your country.
  • One of the reasons to participate in Model UN is to learn about the world. Country research is an opportunity for your students to gain perspective on what it’s like in other parts of the world.
  • Research is a skill that students will use throughout grade school and university, as well as their careers.

So if you’re a teacher or parent who’s new to Model UN, how do you teach your student how to research a country? Read on!

Click to continue…

How to Teach Model UN: Current Events, Israel-Palestine, and UN Membership

by Ryan on September 22, 2011 · 4 comments

What I wrote as I explained Israel-Palestine and UN membership to my students

I’m starting a new series on “How to Teach Model UN.” Every week, I will share teaching tips, lesson plans, and classroom activities on various Model UN topics and skills. 

This series is geared towards US-based high school and middle school teachers who are new to Model UN, interested in starting a club at their school, or looking for ideas on how to use Model UN in the classroom.

I welcome teachers to comment below and ask questions or share their own tips. Also, check out the Teacher Workshops that KFC and I will host across the United States this Fall!

The news is full of teachable moments. For teachers, every day and every story is a lesson you can use to teach your students something new about the world. And this week’s news is particularly interesting for MUNers — the world’s leaders are meeting in the General Assembly to discuss a conflict as old as the UN itself: Israel-Palestine.

In this post, I’ll go over:

  • How to use the “Current Events” activity to get your students to read the news, learn about the world, and practice public speaking,
  • Palestine’s application for UN membership, including background info on the Israel-Palestine and how UN membership works, and,
  • A Model UN simulation of the Security Council debating Palestine’s UN membership, which you can use in class.

Click to continue…

Best Delegate to Teach Model UN Across the United States this Fall!

by Ryan on September 13, 2011 · 0 comments

KFC and I are excited to announce our plans to offer Best Delegate workshops for both students AND teachers across the United States this Fall!

Last year, the Best Delegate team spoke with numerous students and teachers as we traveled across the United States to visit Model UN conferences and blog about them. Over the Summer, we read the emails you sent us, the comments you left on the blog, and the survey responses you made. And from your feedback, we learned that one of the best things we could do to help the Model UN community was to share more of our Model UN knowledge in person with both students and teachers.

So, this Fall, KFC and I will be offering workshops for both students and teachers across the United States. Our student workshops focus on the leadership skills that helped us get into top-tier universities and launch our careers. These are workshops we wish we could have attended when we were students.

And our teacher workshops are geared towards teachers who are new to Model UN or interested in starting a club at their school. These workshops are designed in response to something we heard from many new advisors: “I’m new to MUN, but I love how it motivates my students to learn about the world. I just wish I knew what it was like to be a delegate so I could better understand what they’re going through. Having that knowledge would help me help my students.”

KFC and I will be leading the workshops, and our tour kicks off next week in Orange County, where our own Model UN experience started. Check out the details below!

Best Delegate Student Workshop:
Confident Public Speaking & Winning Negotiation in Model UN (Orange County 9/25)

Are you passionate about Model UN? Do you want to take your Model UN skills to the next level?

This workshop is geared towards high school students with Model UN experience who want professional training to improve their public speaking and negotiation (e.g. caucusing) skills.

Confident Public Speaking

Best Delegate teaches students the keys to style and substance to deliver an effective and persuasive speech. Students will learn techniques to build self-confidence, find their best voice, and add engaging style to their presentation. Students will then combine style with essential speech-writing tactics such as stage & audience tuning, simplification, and framing to create the impact that will make a speech memorable.

Go beyond giving good speeches — learn how to stand out with style and substance.

Winning Negotiation

Best Delegate teaches students the strategies and styles to lead negotiations into favorable outcomes. Students will learn the strategies of principled negotiation, collaboration, and Socratic fact-finding to set how the game of negotiation will be played. Students will also learn the how to use negotiation styles and relationship-based negotiation to create win-win solutions for everyone in the negotiating table.

We don’t want you to just participate in caucus — we want you to lead it.

Class starts at 9am and end by 4pm. Lunch will be provided. Students who complete the course will receive a Best Delegate Certificate of Achievement.

  • Date: Sunday, September 25
  • Time: 9am to 4pm (lunch provided)
  • Location: Mission Viejo, CA
  • Cost: $99 per student (15 students max)

Click here to register today!

FREE! Best Delegate Teacher Workshop:
How to Get Started with Model UN (Orange County 9/21)

Maybe you’ve been asked to start a Model UN club at your school — but you’ve never done Model UN before! How do you get started?

Or perhaps you’ve heard about this Model UN thing and you’re curious about how it works. Can Model UN help you as a useful teaching tool? Can it motivate your students to learn about the world?

Find out the answers to these questions and more by attending the Best Delegate Teacher Workshop, “How to Get Started with Model UN.” This workshop is geared towards teachers who are new to Model UN or interested in starting a Model UN club at their school.

Teachers will observe students conducting a Model UN simulation and then run their own teachers-only simulation. Teachers who complete the course will receive a Best Delegate Training Certificate.

  • Date: Wednesday,  September 21
  • Time: 7pm to 9pm
  • Location: Mission Viejo, CA
  • Cost: FREE! (15 teachers max)

Click here to register today!

The full list of dates and locations will be released by the end of this week, but some of the areas we will visit include:

  • New Jersey
  • New York City
  • Boston
  • Philadelphia
  • Baltimore
  • Washington, DC
  • Los Angeles
  • San Diego
  • Palo Alto
  • San Jose

Check back soon for more updates!

The Educational Benefits of Model UN

by Ryan on March 15, 2011 · 5 comments

This post is part of a series on Model UN for new high school delegates and advisors. Let me know if you’d like to read more about this topic in the comments, and feel free to share your own thoughts!

No matter how many Model UN conferences I attend, I’m always a little amazed. These are students who could be hanging out at home, watching TV, or playing video games, and instead they want to put on a suit, work on a weekend, and develop solutions to the world’s most important problems. What makes them want to do MUN? And what makes Model UN worth teaching?

Model UN motivates students to learn.

On an emotional level, Model UN is a motivational experience. It’s fun to pretend being a world leader solving the world’s most important problems in 48 hours or less. Model UN activates students’ imagination and creativity – activities that students are naturally inclined to do.

Students enjoy exploring new places, sharing common experiences with teammates and friends, and making new friends with smart and interesting students from other schools – which includes the best and the brightest from other countries.

Students joke that “MUN is F-U-N,” but it’s true – that’s why it works so well. Students attend Model UN conferences because it’s fun – they just happen to learn something along the way. And when students have fun while learning, what they learn is more likely to stick.

Click Here to Learn More