Teaching
The debrief is the session after a simulation in which the instructor and students jointly reflect on the exercise and on the outcomes it produced. It matters as much after a competitive conference as after a class session. What follows is what a debrief can reasonably be asked to do, and five exercises that do it. Everything below is free to print and hand to a colleague.
What a debrief is for
A debrief without a goal becomes a conversation about whether people enjoyed themselves. Pick two or three of these for any single session rather than chasing all six.
| Objective | What it looks like in the room | How you know it happened |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Reflect on lessons learned and on the whole experience | Students say what happened and then what it taught them, in that order | Somebody explains an outcome by naming a rule or an incentive, not a personality |
| 2. Contextualize what the course taught through what the simulation did | The reading stops being the reading and becomes an explanation of Tuesday | A student reaches for a course concept to explain the room, unprompted |
| 3. Self-actualize the skills learned or developed | Students name a specific thing they did, not a quality they believe they have | “I got three delegations to move” rather than “I got better at negotiating” |
| 4. Promote a stronger sense of identity as a future practitioner | Students speak about the work as something people do, and that they might do | Somebody says what the job would actually be like, and whether they want it |
| 5. Consider suggestions for improving the simulation | Students are asked to redesign it, and told their answers change next year | You end up with two changes you will actually make |
| 6. Create common reference points for future learning | The room acquires a shared event it can be pointed back to all term | In November you say “like the budget vote” and nobody needs it explained |
Some simulations should add a seventh: understanding and appreciating opposing viewpoints. It applies wherever students argued a position they do not hold, and the post-simulation debate is the straightest route to it.
The third objective is worded carefully and should stay that way. It asks students to recognize and name what they did, not to assert that they improved, because self-rated skill gains are the least reliable finding in this literature.
Five exercises
Each handout gives the running order, the prompts or the script, and what to watch for. The sequence that works best moves outward: write first, then small groups, then the plenary, then something individual and written afterward.
Ten minutes, three prompts, no grade. The exercise that reaches the students a plenary never will. PDF, 2 pages.
One to two pages, graded. The only exercise that produces real evidence of individual learning, and the only one that gives a student a private channel to you. PDF, 2 pages.
The activity most often used and the one most likely to stimulate a conversation between you and the students. Scripts only: three openings, a closing for when the period is gone, a second pass two weeks later, and one line to redirect a personal criticism. PDF, 2 pages.
Four students, twenty minutes, mixed across the sides they argued. Every student speaks, and they say things the plenary will not produce. PDF, 2 pages.
Twenty minutes, sides crossed against what they argued. Converts a debrief from recollection into argument, and the straightest route to the seventh objective. PDF, 2 pages.
The evidence behind this
The field insists the debrief is where the learning happens. What the Research Says About Debriefing sets out what is actually known, what is only asserted, which widely repeated claims have nothing behind them, and one counterweight the field does not mention. PDF, 3 pages.
If you find an error here, or a study we have missed, please say so.
