TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Walter Dorn has rich experience teaching military officers, of rank Officer Cadet to Brigadier-General. He has also taught civilians in graduate studies. For over two decades, it has been his honour to teach at the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) and at the Canadian Forces College (CFC) in both official languages using his learner-centric Teaching Philosophy.
He first came to RMC in 2000 at the invitation of Politics Department head Professor Joel Sokolsky to serve as the organizer (Director) of the International Peacekeeping Summer Institute which offered "critical perspectives on global peace operations." This institute was co-sponsored with Acadia University and the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre (PPC), where he had designed and taught several PPC courses from 1998 to 2002. The Institute was held during summers (renamed Peace Operations Summer Institute) at Wolfville (Acadia University), Clementsport (PPC) and Kingston (RMC).
At RMC, he taught the War Studies course "International Peacekeeping" (WS 508) in several venues/formats: in person at RMC in Kingston and in person at National Defence Headquarters (NDHQ) in Ottawa, and by video-teleconference / virtually from the CFC in Toronto to students across the country. He is currently scheduled to teach WS508 again in Fall 2023. The course has traditionally covered a wide range of topics, as shown in an early WS508 syllabus. The most recent syllabus is available upon request.
At RMC, Dr. Dorn also taught a geography course (GOE307), syllabus linked here, and received high student evaluations from the officer cadets: the Instructor Evaluation showed a mean of 4.4 out of 5. Appointed to the Department of Politics and Economics, he was responsible to the Department Head and the Dean of the Division of Continuing Studies, for the departmental review the course "Introduction to Peacekeeping" (POE110/210).
Dr. Dorn accepted the suggestion of RMC Dean Sokolsky and Principal Kowal to transfer to CFC to serve in a department that soon became RMC's Department of Defence Studies. He accepted the offer from CFC Commandant BGen Robin Gagnon in 2003. At CFC, he has been engaged from his arrival in the development of curriculum. He drafted Learning Outcome Guides (LOGs), including guidance (scope, teaching points and readings) for lectures and seminars, and gave feedback to planners on their drafts. He served as the Academic Adviser for the National Security Studies Course (NSSC) and the National Security Studies Programme (NSSP) for three years. This encouraged him to maintain daily contacts with students (rank of colonel and equivalent) and Senior Directing Staff (general and flag officers).
Dr. Dorn frequently lectures in the Joint Command and Staff Programme (JCSP) at CFC on subjects such as "," "," "," and "." Some lecture presentations (PPT) are provided here. He has also taught the following JCSP seminars:
| – Canadian Defence, Development and Foreign Policy |
| – Canadian Government and Society |
| – International Relations Theory |
| – Global Institutions |
| – Global Powers |
| – Strategic Express |
| – US Foreign and Defence Policies. |
He developed substantial teaching materials for the JCSP as Chair of the Department of Security and International Affairs (DSIA), as well as the Academic Lead for the main academic course in JCSP: DS569 ("International Security and Canadian Foreign Policy"). He is responsible for the academic content of the course, covering some 40 activities, including the major deliverables like the Global Vortex papers, and corresponding Three Minute Thesis (3MT) activities. Curriculum development includes planning the conduct, selection of lecturers, and choice of readings for seminars.
AS DSIA Chair, he had three miltiary officers working as CDOs in his department. He oversaw their work and also took on some CDO duties himself.
He also had responsibility to teach in JCSP, including the following:
| – International Security and Canadian Foreign Policy: Course Introduction |
| – The Evolution of Power Since 1918 |
| – Brazil and Latin America |
| – China and Southeast Asia |
| – Europe and the EU |
| – India and South Asia |
| – Middle East |
| – Russia and Eurasia. |
For JCSP, he has been responsible for the teaching materials (LOGs) for the following activities:
| – International Organizations: A Case Study |
| – Global Institutions seminar |
| – NATO |
| – The Role of International Organizations |
| – Transnational Issues |
| – United Nations |
In his capacity as Chair of the Department of Security and International Affairs (DSIA, 2010–13) at CFC, he read, edited and evaluated all activity descriptions (LOGs) for the academic courses in each programme, including the National Security Programme (NSP) and the Joint Command and Staff Programme. The JCSP course on “National Security and International Affairs” (DS 547) had 39 distinct activities (e.g., lectures, and seminars) for a total of 111 hours of programme time in the residential course and 164 hours of programme time in the distance learning (DL) version. He annually presented the opening DS 547 lecture of the residential course to overview the content and deliverables in DS 547. He also prepares the "Course Overview" and "Guidance for Instructors" in the DL version of the course. Concomitantly he served in 2010/11 and 2011/12 and 2014/15 as an Instructor for one DL syndicate, with responsibility for marking threaded discussions and essays.
He was involved in the redesign of JCSP to allow for more electives and student options (streams). In addition, as DSIA Chair he was responsible for the curriculum of the Canadian Security Studies Programme (CSSP), which is a 28-activity course held annually over two weeks until 2000.
Dr. Dorn offers an annual elective in JCSP (since the first running of electives in 2007-08, evaluation) on "Peace and Stability Operations: An Evolving Practice" (DS526, 2019 syllabus here). The course is characterized by wide ranging student-led inquiry through active class participation, presentations, media analyses (stories in the news in the previous three days), a final test, and a digital simulation (see below).
In the past two decades, Dr. Dorn has supervised over 100 officers from a dozen nations in research papers at the master's level for both the JCSP and NSSC/NSSP/NSP courses.
He has taught courses and given lectures at many universities and military institutions. This website's presentations page lists lecture titles in courses and at outside institutions, including the actual pdf and/or PPT.
Dr. Dorn is pioneering new forms of experiential learning: he is the first to conduct digital simulations at CFC. The medium allows students to become immersed in an environment where a wide range of scenarios can be enacted. He has published research on this cutting-edge technology for pedagogy:
Peacekeeping Simulation: From wargames to peacegames (International Peacekeeping journal) (pdf)
Simulating Peace Operations: Digital Training and Education (Simulation & Gaming) (html) (pdf)
He has also developed new simulations including for his classes. For descriptions of the Peacekeeping simulationsm see: www.peacekeepinsim.net. This has has resulted in positive comments from officer students, see: Player Feedback at www.peacekeepingsim.net/player-feedback.