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Into Practice
Timely teaching advice and research findings
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Engaging Students Emotionally through Online Simulations
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HIGHLIGHT: Online simulations offer a multimedia learning experience that cannot be attained through traditional classroom formats. They can support student learning by engaging students cognitively, emotionally, and behaviorally and have a transformational impact on how students interact with the world around them.
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 Tsedal Neeley, Naylor Fitzhugh Professor of Business Administration and Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Research, first experimented with simulations in the classroom as a doctoral student. She crafted vignettes and scenarios on paper aimed at developing empathy, cross-cultural awareness, and behavioral change and presented them to students. As she continued her research on fostering collaboration between distributed team members from different cultures and with different language abilities, Neeley sought to develop a virtual teaching tool that could simulate these dynamics for students and provide an opportunity to gain insight into the cognitive and emotional challenges that arise for members and managers of global teams. She developed an online Global Collaboration Simulation, The Tip of the Iceberg, in which students are randomly assigned roles of native or non-native English speakers at a fictional organization. In the fifteen-minute simulation, the program constrains students’ actions to mimic communication patterns of real teams and provide firsthand experience of how communication challenges can interfere with work goals. The simulation has been used in courses at Harvard Business School and by thousands of people worldwide since its launch.
The benefits: Simulations can be powerful teaching tools because they engage students cognitively, emotionally, and behaviorally. Few opportunities exist for students to gain meaningful insight into the experiences of others. The Tip of the Iceberg aims to develop empathy by “placing them in the shoes of others and helping them truly understand the way in which they shut people off or down based on their linguistic privilege.” Studying the scholarship or attending a lecture on language challenges in the workplace provides passive engagement with the material. Simulations allow students to enact the roles and learn through lived experiences that they otherwise would not have due to structural or demographic reasons. The simulations can serve as a “powerful connecting experience” and help “people in the classroom bond.”
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“A simulation is not just a game for fun. My aspiration is for every single person in that room to have a transformative experience, making them better colleagues, better collaborators, and better leaders in a diverse and global environment.”
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The challenges: Developing virtual simulations from scratch is a long process that requires a range of resources. You must design not only the simulation itself, but tutorials, documentation, and administrative features to avoid user error. You can also think creatively about how to present in-person case studies in a way that mimics some of these experiences.
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Takeaways and best practices
- Simulations meet student desires for more multimedia content. Students are increasingly asking for multimedia learning content. Virtual simulations are an extension of case studies and online is a natural learning space for many of today’s students.
- The length of time should be minimal. Neeley’s simulation takes just fifteen minutes, and the remaining class-time is spent debriefing, allowing students to process the experience, rather than feeling rushed at the end of class. The length also gives Neeley the option to repeat the exercise during the next class so students can put what they’ve learned into action.
- Technology support is necessary. For simulations to run smoothly during class time, it’s best to have technology support lined up for the session to assist any students having difficulty logging into the platform or during the program.
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Related Teaching Efforts
Instructional Moves (IM) has devoted a portion of its website to Teaching with Simulations, featuring classroom footage and behind-the-scenes looks at in-person simulations from both Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Medical School. IM Featured faculty member Brian Mandell of HKS offers advice that instructors can apply to both in-person and online simulations, including suggestions for building intense learning environments through simulation design and preparing students for a simulation. Meanwhile, IM featured faculty member Richard Schwartzstein of HMS discusses not only designing a simulation session but also debriefing the emotional experience of the simulation.
Visit the Augmented and Virtual Reality Studio in the Cabot Science Library to explore the potential for immersive simulations in the classroom.
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Relevant Research
Games and Simulations: A New Approach in Education? aims to shed light on the definition of games and simulations, their educational use, and some of their effects on learning.
This book provides a comprehensive look at the importance of interactive learning materials to the learning process as well as a step-by-step approach on how to explore, select, and integrate these resources into the learning process.
This article explores the use of simulations and games in tertiary education. It examines the extent to which academics use different simulation-based teaching approaches and how they perceive the barriers to adopting such techniques.
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Related Resources and Opportunities
Interested in learning more about simulations and games as learning tools? Check out this guide from the Derek Bok Center’s ABLConnect.
Looking to integrate a simulation into your course? Check out this guide to teaching with this resource and the offerings from Harvard Business Publishing.
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