Simulations offer opportunities for students to receive instruction in political strategies and practice developing political skills without the real-world consequences faced by policymakers. Budget simulations introduce students to collective action problems prevalent at all levels of American government and can be used in a variety of courses.…

Courses: Public Relations, Organizational/Crisis Communication, Social Media in Organizations. Objective: The goal for this activity is for students to simulate an organizational response to an environmental/health crisis impacting their business operations. By working through various components of a crisis event, students apply theoretical…

The article describes a multi-phase, in-class simulation that employs problem-based learning to teach operations and process-improvement concepts as part of an undergraduate or graduate business course. The simulation is derived from a corporate Lean Six Sigma training activity and has been modified to introduce, demonstrate, and apply a wide…

Lecture-only chemistry courses without a dedicated laboratory component present a significant challenge for instructors to reinforce course content with hands-on learning experiences. This is especially true for lecture courses in which students are unable to directly visualize and operate instrumentation. Herein, we present an in-class activity…

Courses: Conflict communication, negotiation, small group. Objective: This activity will enhance students' awareness and critique of their own negotiation behaviors. A list of references and suggested readings is included.

Resistance to change is a central topic in the study of change management, with resistance by employees often portrayed as an inevitable and undesirable response to planned change that managers must attempt to overcome. While resistance can be detrimental to organizations, it can also be beneficial, by prompting deeper analysis of a change, or by…

A sample class project utilizing Excel spreadsheets to develop a flash drum simulator is demonstrated. In addition to solving equations for mole and enthalpy balances, students are trained to carry out vapor-liquid equilibrium calculations. More importantly, students gain a solid understanding of the link between hand calculations and simulator…

Courses: Organizational Communication, Intercultural Communication. Objectives: This activity encourages students to learn collaboratively about diversity through the sharing of student experiences; deepen and complicate their understanding of organizational diversity; and enhance their ability to apply course material to increasingly complex…

Many preschool classrooms explore plant growth. However, because many plants take a long time to grow, it is often hard to facilitate engagement in some practices (i.e., since change is typically not observable from one day to another, children often forget their prior predictions or cannot recall what plants looked like days or weeks earlier).…

To help teachers engage students in discussions about sustainability, the authors designed Fields of Fuel, a multiplayer, web-based simulation game that allows players to explore the environmental and economic trade-offs of a realistic sustainable system. Computer-based simulations of real-world phenomena engage students and have been shown to…

This article describes a unit in which students investigate total solar eclipses, such as the one coming August 21, from several perspectives. It incorporates mathematical thinking and aligns with the "Next Generation Science Standard." This article refers to physical, virtual, and mathematical modeling. Various models and perspectives…

One of the most persistent and controversial issues facing the global community is climate change. With the creation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992 and the Kyoto Protocol (1997), the global community established some common ground on how to address this issue. However, the last several climate summits have failed…

Although Western cultures tend to view dolphins as friendly and benevolent, in Japanese fishing communities, "iruka" (dolphins) are often viewed as food or pests. These perspectives have led to intense conflicts between Japanese fishermen and activists from the west. This article presents an exercise that simulates intercultural conflict by asking…

The commercial simulator Aspen Chromatography was employed to study and optimize an important new industrial separation process, weak partitioning chromatography. This case study on antibody purification was implemented in a chromatographic separations course. Parametric simulations were performed to investigate the effect of operating parameters…

The thought of learning about the principles of classical management and the machine metaphor of organizing can get many organizational communication students yawning just by seeing the subject in a syllabus. Abundant movie and television examples associated with the machine-like nature of workplace productivity are often used to demonstrate…