Baltimore , Maryland
June 25, 2023
June 25, 2023
June 28, 2023
Industrial Engineering Division (IND)
16
10.18260/1-2--43562
https://peer.asee.org/43562
141
Hugh McManus is an Associate Teaching Professor at Northeastern University. He uses active and simulation-based learning techniques to teach complex and context-dependent subjects such as quality and process improvement, and co-supervises the Industrial Engineering Capstone Program. He is also Adjunct Faculty in the Loyola Marymount Healthcare Systems Engineering program, and a Member of the Faculty at Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine, where he teaches lean for healthcare processes. He creates and distributes lean teaching simulations for many clients in several industries.
Erica Gralla is an Assistant Professor at George Washington University in the Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering. She completed her Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Engineering Systems Division, and her B
Experiential Learning in Virtual Realities
Immersive simulations are powerful teaching tools, particularly useful for subjects where a holistic understanding of a complex system is necessary. The authors have used several 6-hour table-top simulations to teach process improvement and engineering courses at Northeastern, George Washington, and Loyola Marymount universities. The pandemic forced a natural experiment. On-line versions of the simulations were created in commercially available software which recreated the experience of the in-person simulations directly, with almost all actions, lessons, discussion and planning sessions preserved. More than 120 students participated in the on-line simulations in 2020 and 2021. Before and after the pandemic (and during it, in hybrid classes), a large “control” group of students participated in the in-person simulations. Extensive data was collected including self-reported student learning, instructor evaluations of student performance and data from the simulations themselves. On-line simulations were assessed by students to be less effective overall by a small but statistically significant amount, but on most specific aspects of learning, and on student outcomes, there was no significant difference between them and the in-person versions. The existing difference depended on the degree of immersion in the simulation; fully immersive simulations were assessed to be fully as effective as in-person simulations. The virtual simulations were more work to facilitate. The overall experience is a proof-of-concept that virtual simulations can take the place of even complex in-person simulations with little loss of pedagogical effectiveness. The challenge is now to refine the simulations so that the need for faculty facilitation is reduced, and the level of immersion increased.
McManus, H. L., & Gralla, E. (2023, June), Experiential Learning in Virtual Realities Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--43562
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