Demos & Simulations
Simulations and demonstrations can give students engaging, active, and hands-on learning experiences. They are often used to help students understand visual representations of abstract information. They can also be used to promote collaborative problem solving.
For example:
- When students are assigned roles as buyers and sellers of some good and asked to strike deals to exchange the good, they are learning about market behavior by simulating a market.
- When students take on the roles of party delegates to a political convention and run the model convention, they are learning about the election process by simulating a political convention.
- When students create an electric circuit with an online program, they are learning about physics theory by simulating an actual physical set-up.
Instructional simulations have the potential to engage students in “deep learning” that empowers understanding as opposed to “surface learning,” which requires only memorization.
Websites that include collections of simulations:
If you know of other websites that contain effective educational simulations, please send to oirt@nullrutgers.edu.