To supplement the unit on cognitive dynamics, in addition to the readings and lecture, students were required to visit the University of California, Berkeley's Institute of International Studies' Web site, Conversations with History and view Harry Kreisler's interview with Robert McNamara. The purpose of this assignment was to provide the students with a contextual learning experience on how personality can influence foreign policy decisions. The unit on small groups incorporated digitized recordings of 
President Johnson's discussions about the Vietnam War, made available on The Challenges of Democracy textbook Website. The wealth of multimedia material on the Cuban Missile Crisis offered a special opportunity for students to look beyond regular lectures and readings. On the PSC 651 course site, short digitized clips from a documentary video, The Missiles of October, were available as well as links to the recently released digitized tapes of the Excom deliberations.
For the unit on crisis management, an in-class
simulation exercise on the TWA 847 hijacking incident was used to facilitate contextual learning. In the simulation, the students played roles such as the Vice President, members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Advisor. The course site provided background information for the simulation, as well as video clips from the past year's simulation.
In addition to these in-class exercises, one of the graded assignments was also designed to facilitate implicit, incidental and contextual learning. The assignment that helped fulfill our objective was a position paper on the Anti-Personnel Land Mine Treaty. The assignment required students to write a four-page position paper with an executive summary for a high-level National Security Council staff member. In the paper they were to discuss three possible options and their recommendations. By choosing an issue that was currently being debated at the time, the assignment provided the students with a chance to learn a task they might be required to perform in their careers, within the context of real world events.
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