Instructional simulation of economic processes

A major innovation in teaching economics, and social science generally, is instructional simulation. A social process can be rendered concrete and observable when students act out roles in a highly structured context that reveals decisions and consequences with which real-life actors must contend. In economic education, a wide variety of processes have been simulated. For example, economics students can assume roles of workers and managers in an industrial simulation and cope with diminishing marginal returns. Students can assume executive roles in a utility company and experience the consequences of their decisions regarding inflation, productivity, capital improvements, and labor discontent. A market can be simulated to illustrate the concept of equilibrium price. Large scale problems such as world poverty, inadequate agricultural production, and technological change can also become classroom experiences for students. Economic education has been the focus of some of the most extensive and productive efforts at instructional simulation

Context (archaeology · Economic growth · Economics · Poverty · Process (computing · Productivity · Scale (ratio · Variety (cybernetics · Computer Science · Innovations in Educational Methods