Teaching a Modeling Process: Reflections from An Online Course

ABSTRACT

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 posed unique challenges for academic and professional education, while at the same time offering opportunities related to the mass switching of the delivery of courses to the online mode. In this paper, we share the experience of organizing and delivering an online doctoral-level course on Agent-Based Modeling for Social Research. Our aim was to teach interdisciplinary content on various elements of the modeling process in a coherent and practical way. In the paper, we offer a critical assessment of different aspects of the course, related to content as well as organization and delivery. By looking at the course in the light of the current knowledge on good teaching and learning practices from the educational and psychological literature, and reflecting on the lessons learned, we offer a blueprint for designing and running complex, multi-thread simulation courses in an efficient way. © 2021 IEEE.