How to run your first simulation

1Get your access code

Fill in the access form. It asks for your name, your email, and a confirmation that you're an educator. The code is emailed to you, and it's shown on screen too so you don't have to wait for it.

Enter it once on the simulations dashboard and your browser remembers it. You won't be asked again on that computer.

What you need

• Your laptop. This is your control panel. Keep it in front of you.
• A projector or classroom display. Every simulation has a projected view built for the room to watch together.
• A device per group. Not per student - roles are played by small groups, so you need about as many devices as you have roles.

What you don't need

• Student accounts. Students never sign up for anything. They enter a six-character room code and a display name for their group.
• An install, an extension, or an app. It runs in a browser tab.

2Pick a simulation

Most simulations are built to run in a single class period. A few offer an extended version across two periods, and one - Take Home - is designed for three.

Filter the library by subject and grade band, then check three things on the game's page before you commit:

• Number of roles. Most games use six. That's six roles, not six students - each one is played by a small group. See the class-size question in the FAQ.
• Where it lands in your unit. Each game names the unit it belongs in, so you can drop it where it reinforces what you're already teaching.
• The teacher guide. Every game has one, and each contains a section called "What Students See: A Visual Walkthrough" - actual pictures of the screens. It's the fastest way to tell whether a game suits your class.

3Get set up

Read through the guide

Open the game's teacher guide and read the flow, so you know how many phases there are and roughly how long each runs, and the visual walkthrough, so nothing on screen surprises you.

If the guide has a "Say this first" section, read through it. Yes, there's some irony in a product called unscriptED handing you a script - but that opening framing is what sets the stage for students, and having read it means you'll nail it on the first run instead of the third.

Print what you need

The dashboard has a Print Materials page. Pick your game and it produces role dossiers, source packets, and vocabulary sheets. Choose "Save as PDF" in the print dialog and you have a reusable copy for every future class.

Choose your preset

Most games offer a Single Session preset of around 55-60 minutes, and some offer a longer two-day version. You pick when you create the session.

Create your sessions

On the dashboard, click New Session, give it a name and a class period, and create it. Sessions live in your browser, so you can set up all five periods ahead of time.

4The class period, start to finish

Three screens are in play at once. Knowing which is which is most of the battle.

Getting them in

Open the game on your laptop and click Open Display, then drag that window onto the projector. The room code is on screen - six characters, and it never uses I, O, zero or one, so there's no "is that an O or a zero" from the back row.

Students go to sims.unscripted.fit/join, enter the code and a display name for their group. You'll see each group appear on your roster as they arrive.

Assigning roles

You choose: Assign Randomly, or assign by hand. There's a Shuffle if you don't like the first draw. Students never pick their own roles, which is what stops the same few kids taking the same few jobs every time.

Assign after groups have joined, not before.

Running it

You drive the game with Next Phase, and there's a Previous Phase if you move too early. Your dashboard tells you what's happening and what it's waiting for, so you're not tracking state in your head. Nothing advances on its own - the game waits for you.

What you're doing during the middle stretch depends on the game:

• In some, you're advancing through the phases of a round - opening arguments, then negotiation, then a vote - and your job is pacing.
• In others, you're choosing what to throw at them from a deck of events. In Wolf of Econ you decide whether an Oil Price Spike lands this round, and when.
• In others still, you're releasing information: revealing a source, or letting a scenario turn that only you can see reach the room.

Two controls worth knowing about:

• Send Message to All pushes a note to every student screen. Useful for "five minutes left on this phase" without shouting over the room.
• There's a timer you can start and reset. Use it or ignore it.

When something goes wrong

Things happen in the middle of a class period. Here's what the engine does about each one.

How you find out

Before you start the game, your dashboard lists every group that has joined, and that's where you assign roles. Once the game is running, that list gets out of the way so you can see the game itself.

So you don't have to keep watching it. If a group is connected but holding no role - because they moved computers, or reopened the browser, or joined after you assigned - an amber banner appears on your dashboard naming them. It waits about ten seconds first, so a normal reconnect blip doesn't nag you, and you can dismiss it once you've dealt with it.

When you need to fix something mid-game, that's the Player Management panel: assign a role to someone new, move a role to a different group, or clear out a stale entry.

5The debrief

Every game ends on a debrief screen with discussion questions written for that specific simulation.

The simulation is the experience. The debrief is where it becomes the lesson - it's where students say out loud why their bloc held out, and hear that the group across the room read the same situation completely differently.

So protect the time for it. If you're running long, ending a phase early to keep the last ten minutes is a good trade.

Questions teachers ask

How many students do I need?

Most games have six roles, and each role is played by a group rather than an individual - so six roles covers a class of twelve or thirty. Scale by putting more students behind each role, not by adding roles.

Is it really free?

Yes. The whole library, all the guides, all the printable materials. There's nothing to buy, no trial, and no upgrade tier.

What about student data and privacy?

Students don't create accounts and never give an email address. They enter a display name for their group, which they choose. That name - like everything else students enter - isn't stored on our servers; it passes straight through to your browser. Full detail on the privacy page.

Do students need their own device?

One per group is enough. Six roles means about six devices.

Can I run the same game with five different periods?

Yes. Create a session per period. Each gets its own room code and its own state.

Can I see one before I commit a class period to it?

Two ways. There's a walkthrough of a game you can look at without signing up for anything. Or, once you have your code, create a session and open a few extra browser tabs to join your own room as students - you can click all the way through a game by yourself and see exactly what each role gets.

How do I grade this?

We'd suggest not grading the simulation itself. A participation grade measures who spoke up, which mostly measures who is comfortable speaking up - and it tells you nothing about what a student understood.

If you want evidence of learning, ask for it afterwards. Reflection questions that make students connect what happened in the room to the objectives of your unit will show you far more than a participation column: why their group made the call it did, what they'd do differently, where the simulation matched what they'd read and where it didn't. Every game's debrief section is a reasonable starting point for writing those.

What do I tell my administrator?

Try: "You've got to see these simulations I found. We're running one on Wednesday - can you drop into my third period and take a look?"

It lands better than a description, because the thing you're describing looks like organised chaos and sounds like a gimmick right up until you watch thirty students argue about ratification.