Simulation games in education are regarded by a growing number of educators as the future in learning. However, as they are still in the infancy stage, there is widespread confusion about what should be the next step in introducing them into outdated learning environments at schools and universities.
What Are Simulation Games?
Games can be used in education to explain new concepts as well as to enhance student motivation and engagement. Another education tool, simulation, mimics real life environments and uses them as context for learning. An example of simulation tools is a flight simulator for training pilots. Simulation games bring together game features, such as competition, cooperation and role playing, with real life relevance of simulations. Learning with simulation games is active, experiential and fun. It is an ideal learning tool for digital natives, accustomed to video games and demanding to be entertained in the classroom.
Effectiveness of Simulation Games in Education
With simulation games students gain deeper understanding, retain the knowledge and the ability to apply it longer than when taught in traditional ways. Numerous studies have shown that students retain about 5% of information from lectures, but 75% if they learn by doing.
More specifically, in a paper on the education value of an MIT developed game, called Supercharged, it was shown that the understanding of the electromagnetic forces of the tested group playing the game, was significantly higher than that of the control group, receiving interactive lectures.
Simulation Game Benefits for Students
- Enhanced learning through experience
- Improving motivation by engaging with vivid virtual environments
- Challenging players by gradually adding complexity
- Taking risks and exploring in a safe environment
- Learning to solve problems
- Learning to strategize
- Getting immediate feedback
- Practicing new skills
- Having fun while learning
- Retaining information for a long time
Simulation Games Benefits for Educators
- Satisfaction from teaching engaged and motivated students
- Assessments can be built around tracking student actions in playing simulation games
- Can be used for both classroom and distance learning
- Students become responsible for their own learning
- Dealing with frustration in the class
- Create a context for better interactions with peers and the teacher
- Student mistakes in manipulating simulated environments do not cause loss
Where Are Simulation Games Used?
Simulations can effectively model complex systems and are used for industry and military training. By interacting with the simulation software, students gain understanding of the simulated system and the impact of changing its variables. This is particularly significant in learning about hazardous environments.
Simulation games can engage players through role playing, stimulate them to create new ideas, encourage collaboration with others and teach cooperative learning skills.
They can be used to attract students to less popular disciplines, such as math, science, engineering and economics.
Simulation games can be incorporated into the curriculum in both traditional and distance learning. They are particularly attractive for distance learning, by enhancing interactivity and engagement and providing access to virtual laboratories.
Simulation Games in Education – Case Studies
An example of learning with simulations is a web based system that uses the software LabVIEW to run electrical engineering experiments in a virtual laboratory at Fisk University in the USA.
In another example of learning with simulation games, in the New York City’s Quest to Learn school, learning is organized around games and other 21st century literacies. In this experimental public secondary school, students play video games, use them for intellectual exploration, record and edit podcasts, films, videos and communicate via blogs.
Anti-Phishing Phil is an interactive game, developed at Carnegie Mellon University to teach users how to distinguish between legitimate and fraudulent web sites.
Supercharged is a simulation game for teaching introductory physics, developed in the MIT’s Comparative Media Studies program. It is a competitive game, designed to give its players an intuitive understanding of the interaction of electromagnetic forces with charged particles.
Beat the Market is an interactive commercial software program designed to help students learn economics by competing against firms in a simulated market.
Scientists have been trying unsuccessfully for 15 years to figure out the structure of a protein causing AIDS. Players of a simulation game Foldit, developed by the University of Washington, were able to crack the protein structure in three weeks and provide new insights for the design of drugs to block them. This is the first time that gamers made an important scientific discovery, which was published in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.
If you are interested in simulation games or have been using them in education, we invite you to share your views and experience.
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