In undergraduate engineering education, students are often overexposed to problem-solving methods that are unrepresentative of how engineers solve problems in practice. For decision-making problems, in particular, students are commonly taught to compare alternative solutions using known and provided information. However, many real-world…

This study describes a foreign investment negotiation simulation game and evaluates its effectiveness on the teaching and learning of international business. The game involves the application of the major topics of an introductory international business course to a setting that is close to the real world, thus allows students to explore the…

An in-depth qualitative study with nine secondary pre-service teachers from an undergraduate "Language and Literacy" class was conducted to examine the potential of simulation using Second Life (SL) in teacher education. Games and simulations were operationally defined in the broadest sense to distinguish key characteristics between…

Capstone courses can create a space for students and educators to act as co-producers of desired learning outcomes which are directly relevant to the world of work. This study uses an auto-ethnographic case study approach to demonstrate how a mixed model learning approach evolved in a capstone marketing strategy unit in a marketing major at an…

Any professional act will lead to a significant change. How can one make students understand "managing change" as a consequence or as an intended objective? "DECISION IN CASCADE" -- is a Management Computational Game for the Education of University Master Students and Junior Executive -- simulates five economic functions: research and…

A discussion of the use of simulation in teaching a university education course. (HB)

Describes the successful use of six simulated games in a commercial law class of 84 students and discusses teacher and student evaluation of their effectiveness. The six games, three with a legislative setting and three with a court setting, are included. (JT)

This description of two simple simulations as taught to undergraduate teacher trainers in a history of education course includes materials, procedures, follow-up exercises, and a brief defense of the use of simulations in higher education. (Author/CMV)

Describes a college-level simulation game about the French Revolution. Based on George Lefebvre's "The Coming of the French Revolution," the role-play focuses on social and economic causes of the revolution and allows students to understand citizens' grievances against the French government. (AV)

After a brief introduction to the educational benefits of simulation/games, the use of two games in two undergraduate political science courses is described. For a game to be valuable from an educational point of view, it must be analytic in nature and similar in structural elements to those of the real world. The simulation experience motivates…

The author's gaming-simulation course at Western Carolina University has been 30 years in the making. Its structure, content, and instructional methods are heavily influenced by the author's professorial aspirations and experience in the use of simulations. In this brief article, the author shares some of his early use of educational games and…

This article describes the authors' experience of developing a business gaming course for business people in Japan. The course that was developed consists of (a) simple gaming experiments among multiple students using ALEXANDER ISLANDS, a tiny business game on the World Wide Web; (b) lectures to make the students understand the core concepts of…

An instructional resource handbook for graduate-level courses in the field of higher education is presented. Twenty-two members of a national higher education network wrote the first essay on "Course Syllabi as Instructional Resources," which reports on a survey of faculty in higher education programs and specifically on course emphases, major…

This article reports on two studies that were conducted to determine whether (a) total enterprise simulations are suitable for assessing business skills and (b) the tournament concept can be effectively applied to such simulations. The first study involved 141 senior business students; the second, 74. The results are consistently favorable on both…

Effective facilitation of experiential learning involves an array of knowledge and skills. Educators who facilitate open simulations--one form of experiential learning--benefit from having relevant theoretical frameworks to sustain an appropriate balance between being directive and supportive of their participants' freedom to learn. This ongoing…