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Simulation games are common in business classes, where they often focus on manufacturing and selling generic products like widgets. But when a Sports Business faculty member decided to run a simulation game pilot project, he skipped the widgets and went straight for an XBox 360. Paul Swangard, Managing Director of the James H. Warsaw Sports Marketing Center, is using Madden NFL’s franchise mode to help his SBUS 199 students grasp marketing and business decisions faced by NFL franchises

Dukeminier saw it as a success, with a few caveats. “It certainly kept the students engaged and I think that overall they learned quite a bit from the combination of the Madden project and Paul’s course. It also proved to be much more engaging than the typical business simulation where you sell widgets,” he said. “It was not at all uncommon for the students to be cheering when their team did well, or yelling when it did poorly.”

About half of the students in the class participated in the pilot project. They formed teams of four and were given the same team, the Seattle Seahawks, to manage through ten seasons. Students were graded on the decisions they made and the rationale behind those decisions.

Research into games for educational purposes reveals some interesting trends. Early studies of consumer games helped to identify the aspects of games that make them especially engaging and appealing to players of various ages and of both genders: the feeling of working toward a goal; the possibility of attaining spectacular successes; the ability to problem-solve, collaborate with others, and socialize; an interesting story line; and other characteristics. These qualities are replicable, though they can be difficult to design well, and they can transfer to games featuring educational content.

Linked to the general principles of how we learn are more specific principles that describe how we learn in the context of effective game environments. James Paul Gee, author of What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy , describes 36 learning principles that well-designed games embody. Following are four: Subset Principle: Learning, even at its start, takes place in a (simplified) subset of the real domain. For example, the setting for the loading dock game should represent an actual loading dock, so that players can easily map their in-game behavior to on-the-job performance. However, it must be a simplified version that omits unimportant details, so that players can focus on aspects of the simulation that are relevant to the learning objective—things like crosswalks and pedestrians. Active, Critical Learning Principle: The learning environment must encourage active and critical, not passive, learning. In the loading dock example, this means players do not merely watch correct and incorrect examples of loading dock behavior, followed by a quiz—they actually think, act, experience consequences and pursue goals in a variable game environment. Probing Principle: Learning is a cycle of probing the world (doing something); reflecting on this action and, on this basis, forming a hypothesis; re-probing the world to test the hypothesis; and then accepting or rethinking the hypothesis. For example, an effective loading dock game must present a functional environment in which players may choose from and evaluate many different actions. The goal is to find the right course of action via experimentation—making choices and experiencing the consequences. Practice Principle: Learners get lots of practice in a context where the practice is not boring (i.e. in a virtual world that is compelling to learners on their own terms and where the learners experience ongoing success). For example, to encourage practice—and thus, development of good habits—the loading dock game must gradually increase the difficulty level of the in-game challenges. This keeps players engaged and encourages them to continually hone their skills.

"Mass Extinction"—and other curated games to be developed within CMS—are designed to demonstrate the educational power of games for incorporating museum collections, research, and expertise in reaching this young audience—a group whose passion for learning in both the sciences and the humanities is vital to the world's well-being.

PeaceMaker is inspired by real events in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Play the news: how would you react to the events in the Middle East presented using real news footage and images?

a brief introduction to game-based learning

The Virtual Forensics laboratory is designed to teach applied forensic science through game-based learning.

This simulation will allow the students to assume the role of these early composers, perform the same experiments with sound, and learn why composers came to those conclusions.

Early efforts in the development of coolit defined a sequence of game levels that would, through the use of scaffolding, guide a student from a novice’s approach to an expert’s perspective through the increasing complexity required of a comprehensive cryogenic design.

Games often have a fantasy element that engages players in a learning activity through narrative or storylines. Educational video games can be motivating to children and allow them to develop an awareness to consequentiality.[1] Children are allowed to express themselves as individuals while learning and engaging in social issues. Today's games are more social, with most teens playing games with others at least some of the time and can incorporate many aspects of civic and political life.[2] Students that participate in educational video games can offer deeper, more meaningful insights in all academic areas. The success of game-based learning strategies owes to active participation and interaction being at the center of the experience, and signals that current educational methods are not engaging students enough. Experience with and affinity for games as learning tools is an increasingly universal characteristic among those entering higher education and the workforce

is a branch of serious games that deals with applications that have defined learning outcomes. Generally they are designed in order to balance the subject matter with the gameplay and the ability of the player to retain and apply said subject matter to the real world.

The goal of the initiative is to help usher in a new series of policy education, exploration, and management tools utilizing state of the art computer game designs, technologies, and development skills.

A quick review of published studies indicates that games have been used in design education. However, no systematic study of the use (or potential) of games exists in these disciplines, and no published data exists on the use of video games in this regard. Further, no one has engaged in the long-term development of video games for the collegiate design student. This study will provide key information for presentation, publication, and building a foundation for seeking future funding.