Simulation-based education (SBE) is a teaching strategy in which students adopt a character as part of the learning process. SBE has become a fixture in the university classroom based on its ability to stimulate student interest and deepen analytical thinking. Simulations and Student Learning is the first piece of scholarship that brings together experts from the social, natural, and health sciences in order to open up new opportunities for learning about different strategies, methods, and practices of immersive learning. This collection advances current scholarly thinking by integrating insights from across a range of disciplines on how to effectively design, execute, and evaluate simulations, leading to a deeper understanding of how SBE can be used to cultivate skills and capabilities that students need to achieve success after graduation.

Contains research and current trends used in digital simulations of teaching, surveying the uses of games and simulations in teacher education.

This book is written for teacher educators who are looking for strategies to teach a foreign or second language in a more meaningful way whilst applying active methodologies to develop critical thinking skills. The book is designed to guide the readers through a series of simulations that provide challenging learning opportunities, similar to the ones experienced in real life, whereby each simulation is designed to support participants’ language and critical thinking skills and their abilities as future teachers. The book first introduces the concept of simulations in education. Then it provides examples of fully developed simulations and instructions for their implementation, a template for the readers to create their own simulations, as well as suggestions for peer classroom observation and professional development. Finally, three case studies exploring student learning through simulations are presented. This book is a useful teaching resource for teacher instructors, English as a Second Language/English as a Foreign Language students, secondary school teachers and for language institutions.

"This book examines the potential of games and simulations in online learning, and how the future could look as developers learn to use the emerging capabilities of the Semantic Web. It explores how the Semantic Web will impact education and how games and simulations can evolve to become robust teaching resources"--Provided by publisher.

Toward Anti-Oppressive Teaching introduces an innovative approach for using live-actor simulations to prepare preservice teachers for diverse classroom settings. Based on the SHIFT Project at Vanderbilt University, the book highlights the promise of these encounters to empower preservice teachers to become more culturally responsive. Despite widespread recognition of the need to educate novice teachers in the theory and practice of culturally responsive pedagogy, few teaching candidates have the opportunity to try out, reflect upon, and internalize these lessons prior to taking their first job. As a result, new teachers are often unprepared to respond effectively to real-life dilemmas of difference and inequity in K-12 schools. The book shows how carefully crafted encounters--when incorporated as part of a well-designed cycle of instructional tasks--can build on traditional approaches to educating future teachers about culture, power, and systems of oppression. The book is ambitious in scope, laying out the rationale and theory behind the use of this new approach and shows how teacher educators are using, adapting, and designing simulations to fit the context of a teaching program. The authors include sample simulation materials and offer advice for addressing common logistical and programmatic challenges for adopting this new practice including how to hire, train, and care for actors. Filled with engaging examples and testimony from students who have participated in the program, Toward Anti-Oppressive Teaching provides guiding principles and practical suggestions, and offers a point of entry for those interested in a new approach to addressing a long-standing challenge in teacher education.

At a time when scientific and technological competence is vital to the nation's future, the weak performance of U.S. students in science reflects the uneven quality of current science education. Although young children come to school with innate curiosity and intuitive ideas about the world around them, science classes rarely tap this potential. Many experts have called for a new approach to science education, based on recent and ongoing research on teaching and learning. In this approach, simulations and games could play a significant role by addressing many goals and mechanisms for learning science: the motivation to learn science, conceptual understanding, science process skills, understanding of the nature of science, scientific discourse and argumentation, and identification with science and science learning. To explore this potential, Learning Science: Computer Games, Simulations, and Education, reviews the available research on learning science through interaction with digital simulations and games. It considers the potential of digital games and simulations to contribute to learning science in schools, in informal out-of-school settings, and everyday life. The book also identifies the areas in which more research and research-based development is needed to fully capitalize on this potential. Learning Science will guide academic researchers; developers, publishers, and entrepreneurs from the digital simulation and gaming community; and education practitioners and policy makers toward the formation of research and development partnerships that will facilitate rich intellectual collaboration. Industry, government agencies and foundations will play a significant role through start-up and ongoing support to ensure that digital games and simulations will not only excite and entertain, but also motivate and educate.

Simulations and the Future of Learning offers trainers and educators the information and perspective they need to understand, design, build, and deploy computer simulations for this generation. Looking back on his recent first-hand experience as lead designer for an advanced leadership development simulation, author Clark Aldrich has created a detailed case study of the creation and deployment of an e-learning simulation that had the development cycle of a modern computer game. With this book Aldrich, a leader in the e-learning field, has created an intriguing roadmap for the future of learning while taking us along on an entertaining rollercoaster ride of trial and error, success and failure. Simulations and the Future of Learning outlines the design principles and critical decisions around any simulation's components— the interface, the physics and animation systems, the artificial intelligence, and sets and figures. Using this accessible resource, readers will learn how to create and evaluate successful simulations that have the following characteristics: authentic and relevant scenarios; applied pressure situations that tap user's emotion and force them to act; a sense of unrestricted options; and replayability.