“Gijs spent time with the student groups in each of their breakout rooms and fielded questions about their companies’ performance. The students loved that! The students were engaging with one another, completely unsupervised. It was a great example of student-centred and student-led learning.”
As part of his Tourism Management module, Charles Bladen was looking for an activity that developed students’ employability skills whilst they learned applicable academic content. He used the Tour Operator Simulation where teams of students manage their own online travel company, deciding on which destinations to offer to their target groups, what service levels to provide, and what prices to charge.
“The simulation is your business, being up against other teams by doing your research, knowing your customers, knowing your market, knowing your competitors. Business simulations bridge the gap between learning academic content and theories and developing and applying employability skills. It’s a good way of developing ‘reflection in action’ - based on the Donald Schön model.“
“We cover the content and relevant theory in other classes but afterwards students want to start applying this knowledge. It’s key to applied learning. In the simulation they learned and applied hard skills but also soft skills which they’re not always aware that they’re learning, it’s almost ‘education by stealth! There was also something satisfying for students to have their own business and feel like they were in the driving seat of it.”
“Student feedback has been really good. The module received a 90% student satisfaction rate. I’ve never had any negative feedback for the Tourism Management module, and I think the simulation is one of the main reasons for that.”
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