An Approach for Integrating Simulation Games in Higher Education

The “new learning generation”, the so-called “Digital Natives” or Generation@, grows up with more and more information and communication technologies (ICT). The characteristics of this generation are to be considered while planning or improving a lecture to meet the students' new skills. Simulation games play an important role for modern learning scenarios, because they are a cost-effective way to improve learning processes. As a part of the changeover to the Bachelor/Master-System in the European Union, there is the chance to make use of new concepts and methods, which utilize the new skills of Digital Natives and the along going mental models. The “German Chamber of Industry and Commerce” (DIHK) recently criticizes that the education of German universities does not prepare the students for their later work life very well. To overcome such situation simulation games can be used to give students the opportunity to apply the content of a lecture in a virtual environment. Specially lectures with high student numbers, e.g. the lecture “Computer Science in Mechanical Engineering” of the RWTH Aachen University is attended by more than 1400 students each summer term, web based simulations are an efficient way to give students an idea of the practical application of the theoretical knowledge gained in the lectures. We developed a framework for simulation games in higher education, which offers an easy way to enable students to apply the taught knowledge. To evaluate our framework the traditional learning concept of the lecture “Project Management for Physicist” (with about 100 students) is actively supported during the summer term 2011 by an online simulation game providing the students a way to utilize the content of the lecture.