Didactic Materials

M.O.R.D.O.R. also brings together a set of (supporting) outputs that streamline the project’s main didactic goals. 

Our Dictatorship Research (Encyclopedia) and EU Foreign Policy Analysis are both accompanied with educational dimensions, summarized in a Didactic Booklet. In addition, there are other materials (online lectures, podcasts, etc.)

The Didactic Booklet brings together the main didactic insights containing: 

1) A List of relevant Learning Outputs to benchmark the “mind map” of the encyclopedia

2) an instruction booklet for educators: How to use the lesson plans + Guidelines for teaching about dictatorship and democratization. This booklet will also contain a user guide for self-study.

This work will encompasses the following elements:

  • 6 lesson plans on dictatorship (according to relevant topics) – Pol. Sci.
  • 2 lesson plans for International Relations (EU politics + Democracy support policies)
  • 5 lessons plans for Area Studies (with a focus on understanding authoritarian contexts and regimes per region)
  • Practical guidelines for ‘how to write policy papers’

All lesson plans will be accompanied with learning outcomes, pre-reading questions, class activities and exercises/assignments, as well as with specific instructions for educators (within the contexts of their respective fields).

The booklet will contain specific instructions for:

  • Improving knowledge and skills of students of D&DR (within Pol. Sci. or Area Studies)
  • Going from knowledge and skills to changing attitudes and teaching the more complex competences (Higher Order Thinking Skills) that should be transferred to students in a classroom setting
  • How to use the lecture plans / syllabuses templates (and the assignments)
  • How to avoid blind spots, and regional biases when presenting teaching materials. (to give an example: When teaching about monarchic regimes, educators from Middle Eastern studies routinely do not cover examples from Africa and/or South East Asia, which may result in teaching students a biased version of how monarchies work, based solely on this Middle Eastern experience).
  • How to integrate such topics into existing lesson plans. 

The main audience for this output are: 

  • Educators of D&DR
  • Students: (under)graduate of D&DR
  • Researchers (young + experienced) of D&DR that double as teachers
  • Educators of Area Studies (Covering the topic of political regimes)

Didactic Team

In cooperation with the Encyclopedia editors and White Paper team leaders a designated didactic team is tasked to create the (accompanying) booklet: ‘How to teach about dictatorship and democratization – A guide for higher education’ (draft title). This will be self-published by M.O.R.D.O.R. in open access).

This team is also tasked with providing methodological tips, warnings about pitfalls, blind spots and biases that will be integrated into the encyclopedia.