How to Help your Employees, Administrators, and Students Understand What Unites Them - and What Makes Them Unique

Pocaro and Musawa continue by noting: "Often traditional research aims only for the first goal, while education design in practice aims for the second. To meet both goals, design research requires close collaboration between researchers, and practitioners to understand to understand the problem at the local level." These authors provide the example that in Oman female students have trouble culturally and socially collaborating with male students.  The solution was to employ computer technologies for group discussions which have enabled female students to fully take part in the activities over time. 

Finally, it cannot be over-emphasized that simulations and training activities will require many refinements and reiterations by collaborators over time to develop them fully within the Middle East context and in the continually-changing global situations we face economically, politically, and socially in this millennia. However, since there are already some functioning models--mostly of constructivism and systems theory design--to support simulations available, educators in the Middle East do not need to start at square one for designing, theorizing, and practicing simulations to move forward in implementing more simulated experiences into our course designs and training projects in this region.

ELEMENTS OF IMPLEMENTATION AND CREATION

There are usually four stages to any simulation: an introductory phase, an activity stage, a debriefing stage,  and a stage for closur e--or in some cases, a stage for commitment or recommitment for improvement or reform/change.

As with any educational activity, setting the stage for the simulation is extremely important. However, because the activity can be misunderstood by students and others to be simply a fun activity or simply seen as a diversion or game, it is important that objectives be communicated well, i.e. in order to decrease the likelihood of further misunderstandings or misinterpretations throughout the activity and debriefing.  Chilcott lists eleven main points to be covered effectively in such an orientation:

(1) Specific learning outcomes of the activity

(2) Explanation of why simulations are appropriate for the content

(3) What procedures and roles need to be followed

(4) Distinguish differences between simulation and the reality it represents

(5) Emphasize the great importance of the debriefing at the end of activity

(6) Encourage participants to keep track of creative ideas & divergent thinking that emerges

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