Simulations in Education

After a long and crazy holiday weekend I am sitting down preparing for my work week ahead. As I was thinking about my math class I had a wonderful assessment idea to wrap up the unit we are currently working on. Money! I thought to myself how can I simulate the expereince of going shopping for my students. Ultimately, I am going to doing some simulation of my own in class this week because I plan on setting up a class store with items for the students to purchase from me. The student will be given fake money, pick out items to purchase, present me (teacher/cashier) with their money, and if change is needed orally state the amount of change needed. This is a great example of simulations used in my very own classroom!

Simulations

Just wanted to reflect on a thought I had this week while in school. At the beginning of the school year, while the weather is still nice, we always get in our fire drills. There are a certain number we must do each year; however, we also practice 'lock-down' drills and bomb threat drills as well. I was thinking about all of these different evacuation procedures, etc. that we talk about and practice and simulations came to mind. These drills provide us all with a glimpse of the concept that help to make the situation more efficient, effective, and in this case less dangerous.

Digital Games and Simulations in Classrooms

http://www.edweek.org/login.html?source=http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/04/08/28games_ep.h28.html&destination=http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/04/08/28games_ep.h28.html&levelId=2100


This is a link from Education Week; however, it only allows you to view the first few paragraphs unless you are logged in under a personal or school account. I wanted to share this with you because it discusses the use of digital games and simulations in classrooms. I think we will see this advanced version of simulations that put technology to use in a variety of ways and forms more and more as time goes on. Classrooms have changed significantly even since I was in high school so I can only imagine how they will change throughout my career as a teacher. I also was trying to get away from my K-12 mindset and think about higher education and different educational fields such as science, medicine, business, etc. I believe the more technologically advanced a school or program is within a college the more opportunities you will see for simulation of real life events.

Examples of Simulation

When I was first contemplating what examples of simulation in education would be I thought of standardized tests. I think of something that happens in education that teachers try to imitate for their students. Testing and particularly standardized tests are a good example because teachers often talk to their students about this and try to create a test and environment beforehand that prepares their students and gives them an experience as similar to the real event as possible.