Andres Sanchez

Aside form the benefit of going from theory to application very quickly. A sim offers a safe environment to fail and experiment. This is something that I find invaluable as an instructor. To me it seems that its much easier to have a student see the theory in action. It also lets the student know that failure is not the end of the road, it is a stepping stone.

I work in a music recording school, where students are place in simulations of recording sessions. Once the theory has been explained, we move to a studio and place students in the chair of the engineer, giving them a sense of what to expect in the real world. With time most students loose the nervous feeling and start to shine.

Dr. Karen Drage

Tanya,

Good point Tanya. I have taught keyboarding before at the middle school level and games are used to reinforce the proper touch typing technique. However, many schools are not using certified teachers to demonstrate the proper touch typing technique so the game is actually reinforcing improper technique.

Dr. Karen Drage

Tanya MacNeil

Where I teach, we have incorporated simulations into some course areas to better support the application of knowledge and skills for networking and security. As an instructor, it is important to help students understand the basic knowledge and skills related to the topic of the simulation before students go into the simulation system to complete it. If students do not have the basic knowledge and skills, they cannot make appropriate decisions and the simulation is not as helpful as it could be because of a high potential error rate. Faculty should be spending some time discussing topics, demonstrating basic skills, and discussing questions with students about the topics before student start on their simulations. By doing this it can help ensure students are ready to begin applying their knowledge and skills.

Janis Lawrence

I teach math and I have found that before I use any simulations, I need to give a brief lecture to explain the concepts.

For example, I will explain the difference between theoretical probability and experimental probability to the students. Then I will use a coin tossing simulation or a spinner simulation.
I will set it for 25 repetitions. Then I will progressively raise the number of reps. Of course, the experiment will approach the theoretical as the number of reps increases towards a large number.

I can save time this way. Since I do not have access to a computer lab and not all my students have smart phones, it is sometimes prohibitive to have the students run the simulation first. If the situation were difference, I would reverse the process. I would hope the students would discover that experimental approaches theoretical as repetitions increase on their own. Then I would recap with the lecture about the law of large numbers.