Simulations, Games, and Experience-Based Learning: The Quest for a New Paradigm for Teaching and Learning

Abstract

This article provides an overview of the evolution of experiential instruction theory and practice from its popular emergence in the late 1960s through the present period. Simulations, games, and other experience-based instructional methods have had a substantial impact on teaching concepts and applications during this period. They have also helped to address many of the limitations of traditional instructional methods, seven of which are discussed in the article. In addition to influencing classroom instruction, experiential methods have come to provide a pervasive and largely taken-for-granted foundation for a wide range of endeavors across many fields. Still, many of the limitations of the classic paradigm continue as vital and largely unresolved challenges today, and there remains much important work to be done to translate insights about experience, teaching, and learning into common practice.

Water management simulation games and the construction of knowledge

“…Simulations games can overcome some of the limitations associated with more traditional learning (Ruben, 1999) and activate the learner. Simulation games as a teaching method have a long history (Greenblat, 1973).…”

“…In this paradigm, the student holds the responsibility for his/her learning (see Table 1). While the traditional paradigm only recognized the classroom experience, it is now recognized that learning occurs also in other settings and is often "social, collaborative, and peer based" (Ruben, 1999). Whereas these theories focussed on the experiencebased and social aspects of learning, Kolb (1984) argued that students do not all learn in the same way.…”

“…All four components, however, are to be activated: learning is about combining the different styles into a more comprehensive knowledge that encompasses both theory and observation, and experiences and experimentation. (Oblinger, 2004;Niemi, 2002;Henschel, 1999;Ruben, 1999;Wright et al, 1994).…”

“…Simulations allow for testing the knowledge acquired through a practical use of the knowledge. Practice through "reinforcement, application, repetition, and often practice in a variety of settings" (Ruben, 1999) enforces the knowledge.…”

Learning oceanography from a computer simulation compared with direct experience at sea

“…Examples are: (1) when conventional graphical symbol systems are used as analogs for both physical and nonphysical processes (Larkin & Simon, 1987); (2) when graphical metaphors allow cognition to be ''externalized'' (Scaife & Rogers, 1996;Tanimoto, Winn, & Akers, 2002) for students to observe and manipulate directly, and, most important for this study; (3) when the graphics are animated to show change over time (Price, 2002;Tversky, Morrison, & Betrancourt, 2002). For these reasons, it was expected that the simulation of ocean processes would be most effective in the second and third (''abstracting'' and ''reflecting'') stages of Kolb's cycle (Ruben, 1999;Soderberg & Price, 2003). By contrast, doing exercises on a research vessel would provide the direct sensory experiences that a computer simulation cannot, and would be more effective for the first and fourth (''data-gathering'' and ''experimentation'') stages of the cycle (Whitford & Eisman, 1999).…”