Curating the Student Experience with Simulations

Curating the Student Experience with Simulations

Faculty choose to use a simulation for many reasons, but primarily it comes down to helping students make the connection between concept and practice. That understanding will make a difference to the employers of these students and that’s an important outcome for business school students.
But it doesn’t happen automatically. Instructors need to curate the experience for students by offering questions for reflection so that they understand the meaning of their experience with the simulation.
Bruce Gray, a former banking executive and a Penn State Behrend alumnus produced this short video to help students understand how to make meaning from their experience with our simulation, BizCafe. We thought it would be useful for other instructors to see his thoughts!
Specifically, Gray contends that employers want to hear about the experience students had with their simulation, especially if they can articulate the following:

  • What you learned?
  • How you worked as a team?
  • How did you take the data that you were given and make decisions when those decisions didn’t turn out the way you wanted them to.
  • How did your team go back?
  • How did they figure out how to make a better decision?
  • How are you able to manage the different personalities within the team?
  • How were you able to coalesce around that idea?
  • How were you able to reach consensus?

He notes that, “Experienced business executives know that what matters in business education is that students learn how to analyze, formulate strategy, and make decisions—particularly on a team.”
Our suggestion is that you take these questions and work them into your curriculum, either as a prompt for an end-of-simulation report, or a final debrief. And if you do, tell us about your experience at marketing_support@interpretive.com! We’d love to hear from you and to share your experience with other instructors.
Thank you to Bruce Gray and all the instructors at Penn State Behrend for sharing your experience!