Wednesday, June 06, 2007

T+D Simulation Article I haven't read

I just saw a post from Design of Knowledge titled Simulations in Training: New T+D Article.
I just had a quick thought that I wanted to comment on but wordpress wanted me to register...no thanks.
So I'll post here. You can read the post and/or the T+D article, but here's the part that caught my attention...
"And if the simulation is not supported by reflective activities and orientation activities, the benefits will not be realized."
Now, I'm counting on my colleagues to correct my thinking on this, but doesn't that statement hold true for most, if not ALL, of the learning activities we create...not just for simulations? Consider the text book of old. Don't you gain more by reflecting on what you've read with others than if you simply read the book and then put it down?

4 comments:

Clive Shepherd said...

Yes, it's true that all learning activities benefit from reflection and, perhaps, orientation (although individuals are quite capable of doing this for themselves), but with many activities this is built in (as with well-run classroom activities, coaching, the better e-learning materials, collaborative online courses), whereas a simulation on its own does not include these elements. Assuming you don't believe the learner is capable of doing their own reflection or you don't trust the conclusions they are likely to come to (which is more like it), you have to supplement the sim.

Lee Kraus said...

Let me think about that... *reflecting* Yes.

Clark said...

While I haven't seen the article myself (!), I think Clive's got it. With the explosion in Serious Games interest, you want to keep people grounded so as to not forget the role of reflection.

bschlenker said...

Good stuff guys. I'm on the same page. So, perhaps creating the simulation is one part of a simulation learning solution. After you create the simulation, THEN you build the learning process with the simulation becoming part of the learning intervention.
It's like embedding a video element in a "course", but instead we embed a simulation. That way we don't forget all of the other critical factors involved in designing instruction. Yes?