Simulations and Discovery Based Learning

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Simulations and Discovery Based Learning
EXPECTATIONS?

• Glen OGrady
• www.discovery.rp.edu.sg/home/ced

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Simulations and the Future of LearningAldrich
(2003)

• Anyone who wants to understand and contribute to
  education in the near future must develop a
  working knowledge of the philosophy of
  simulations.
• There will be a transition period when someone
  can go back and forth between being a teacher and
  being a simulation designer. But over time, the
  two roles will separate based on very different
  skill sets. Then the challenge will be, as with
  textbooks and videos, for teachers to evaluate
  and adapt simulations rather than build them.

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Workshop Plan

• Examine Simulations and its grounding in
  Discovery Based Learning
• Experience Simulations
• Critique these simulations against the principles
  of discovery based learning

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What are Simulations?

• A staged replication of an event (that is at
  least feasible) or a concept in order to enhance
  students' learning through a deliberate ploy to
  draw students into a response.
• Differentiated from role plays. Simulations
  require the students to act as they would act in
  the scenario, whereas role plays assign
  characteristics to students' roles and encourage
  acting.
• The association of experience with knowledge
  leads to internalization.

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Simulations
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Discovery Learning

• Jerome Bruner
• Discovery Learning developed out of
  Constructivist ideas that learning is an active
  process of construction, wherein new ideas or
  concepts are based upon previous existing
  knowledge

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Discovery Learning is when students

• reach a conclusion from realistic examples or
  experiences
• ask questions and formulate their own tentative
  answers
• are not given Content, but rather discover it
  independently by the learner
• test hypotheses and develop generalisations

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Bruners 3 Stages of Intellectual Development

• Enactive a person learns through actions and
  their outcomes
• Iconic learning can be obtained from models and
  pictures
• Symbolic learner has the capacity to think
  abstractly
• Using a combination will help students master
  discovery learning

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Research
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Simulations and the Future of LearningAldrich
(2003)

• A single simulation can teach someone in a
  variety of ways all at once, and for this reason
  the medium is actually much closer to how people
  often learn from real-life experiences. For
  example, simulations can convey stories,
  scenarios, and other forms of linear content,
  just as lectures and books can. However, they can
  also do much more By allowing for user
  interaction and feedback, they can be used to
  show how complex systems work in different
  circumstances. Using a simulation interface,
  learners can also develop an almost instinctual
  "muscle memory" that is characteristic of
  business and social interactions as much as
  sports. ..

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3 Different Aspects of Simulations

• Simulations aimed at recreating a scenario to
  invoke some feeling
• Simulations that are virtual representations of
  scenarios that are not easily replicable in a
  classroom
• Simulations that are designed to show the
  relationship between variables

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Simulations that invoke some feeling

• The Kings MM (Max Fischer)
• Blue Eyes Brown Eyes
• Decision making

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Virtual representations of scenarios not easily
replicable in a classroom

• Simulations
• Bridge Building

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Simulations designed to show the relationship
between variables

• Entropy
• Axon Idea Generator
• Student work

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• Simulations used before other educational
  experiences can facilitate learning more than
  simulations used after other experiences (Andre,
  et al. 1998 Brandt et al. 1991)
• Students who develop simulations have the
  opportunity to foster a deeper understanding
  (Jonassen, 1996, 2000)

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Bicknell-Holmes and Hoffman (2000)

• So lets Evaluate
• Foster exploring and problem solving, the
  creation, integration, and generalisation of
  knowledge,
• Are they student driven, interest-based
  activities in which the student determines the
  sequence and frequency of their interaction
• Do the Activities encourage integration of new
  knowledge into the learners existing knowledge
  base.

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