Instructional simulations are typically goal oriented and focus learners on specific facts, concepts, or applications of the system or environment.
The simulator may be used for training purposes, but it requires an instructor or some other external element to identify key learning aspects of the system to the learner.
Others suggest that experiential learning activities like those found in team training or ropes courses are also simulations because they replicate the human decision-making processes groups may display, albeit in a very different environment.
For example, the effectiveness of the organization of student self-learning - called the ‘pedagogical and didactical function’ in VLEs, will depend on the following: A widely used format for designing online learning environments is WebQuest.
Retrieved on 6/28/09: http://www.biopoint.com/ibr/techforum.htm Since the 1990s, trends such as the performance technology movement, constructivism, Electronic Performance Support Systems, rapid prototyping, increasing use of Internet for distance education/distance learning, and knowledge management endeavors have influenced instructional design practices These changes are producing challenges to existing design models.
[7] There are many alternative models that have been proposed as more conducive to the new Information Age paradigm, including new methods of instruction such as instructional gaming and simulations – Jonassen's promotion of hermeneutics, fuzzy logic and chaos theory as bases for ID, Hoffman's use of Reigeleuth's Elaboration Theory and hypermedia, Akilli & Cagiltay's FIDGE model, among others.
Finally, fuzzy logic is based on the idea that reality is rarely bivalent, but rather multivalent – in other words, there are many "in-between" values that need to be designed for.
[9] Key aspects of ET are: Hoffman states that "the Web-like linking that characterizes hypermedia is more alike to the functioning of human cognition than is the traditional linear structure found in much educational programming", further asserting that "this kind of model could lead to the possibility of modularity and plasticity, which would bring along the ease to make changes in response to learner needs without changing the overall structure of the product and rapid development.
In education, virtual learning environments are simulated experiences which utilize the pedagogical strategies of instructional modeling and role playing for the teaching of new concepts.
Mitchell, Parsons, and Leonard (2007) created a "Virtual Café" program designed to teach social interaction skills to adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Virtual learning environments are also beginning to be used to teach children with ASD how to respond in potentially dangerous situations such as crossing the street and evacuating a building on fire (Strickland, McAllister, Coles, and Osborne 2007).
Sanders (2006) uses movies like Terminator 2: Judgment Day, The Matrix, and I, Robot as callbacks to allegorical warnings of potential mishaps of relying too much on technology.
While it was not incorporated into the initial study, the researchers suggest including instructional scaffolding experiences to help alleviate students’ anxieties with applying mathematics and chemistry concepts in the actual laboratory setting (Barney, Bishop, Adlong, and Bedgood 2009).
When compared to a discussion board, Second Life is a viable alternative for distance learning students to develop group work skills.
Students navigate through the environment with a virtual unmanned vehicle and work collaboratively to solve ecological and environmental problems that are built into the program for instructional purposes.
IVEs simulate the human body so as to provide the student or trainee with the opportunity to realistically practice and thus become proficient as to the particular technique to be taught.
As in real life, patient anatomy moves with the beating of the heart and the breathing of the lungs while tissues deform, bruise and bleed.
The system generates a detailed evaluation after each session, enabling users and supervisors to measure the success of simulated procedures.
Simulations in medicine have been in use as early as the 16th century when the use of training mannequins helped to reduce the high maternal and infant mortality rates.
However, unlike other areas with similar requirements (such as aviation), medicine has not totally embraced the use of simulations to assist with necessary medical training.
A later study, conducted by Amalberti et al.(2005), points to 5 systemic structural barriers to the use of simulators to advance medical training.