Making Learning FUN

(Photo credit: ToniVC)

Most of the time, we only learn best through experience. “Doing” involves taking responsibility for one’s actions, receiving feedback, and having an opportunity to improve through time. According to TIME Magazine’s John Cloud in The Science of Experience, while 10 years is a necessary minimum to achieve expertise in most fields, it doesn’t guarantee success.

In the classroom, students usually have (and often take) the opportunity to argue about their answers’ correctness on exams and reports. In the real world, managers don’t have the luxury of arguing whether or not their decisions deserve ‘credit.’ By playing different roles in a business organization, students experience some of the dilemmas and issues involved in running a business and are be able to test the applicability of different positions involved.

Anders Ericsson writes in the Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance, “The number of years of experience in a domain is a poor predictor of attained performance.” Ericsson, who runs Florida State’s Human Performance Laboratory notes that experts tend to be good at their particular talent, but when something unpredictable happens — something that changes the rules of the game they usually play — they’re little better than the rest of us.

Simulation participants are responsible for their own actions and decisions, but there’s an opportunity to learn and improve over their past mistakes. Simulations help overcoming the barrier of time, by compressing the period of learning into a fraction of the time it would take to experience in real life. Simulations provide rapid feedback, encouraging participants to learn from their successes and failures within a relatively low-risk competitive environment. Jeff Thieme from University of Memphis provides a thoughtful rationale for teaching with business
simulations. “Simulations force students to be accountable for the positive and negative consequences of their decisions. Exams, quizzes, and case studies just can’t do this.”

Simulations allow more rapid time compression, quick feedback and is a low risk process. A well-designed simulation provides students with a realistic education and training experience in the relative safety of the simulation’s operating environment. Most importantly, the lessons learned in the simulation occur within hours or days not months, quarters, or years.

For Expert Performance in Sports book, researchers Janice Deakin and Stephen Cobley observed 24 figure skaters as they practiced. Their observations concluded that even experts, like to practice what they know, stretching out in the warm bath of familiarity rather than stretching theit skills. Those who overcome that tendency are the real high performers.

Like Albert Einstein said, “I never try to teach my students anything. I only try tthao create an environment in which they can learn.” Simulations are based on decision-making under time pressure, generally reflecting the workplace environment in most organizations.