Engage with academic content through activities such as simulations, demonstrations, archival or design work, role play and/or case studies involving a community partner.
Why should you incorporate a simulation into your course?
Simulations at Brock
Consider these examples of simulations designed by faculty and instructors at Brock.
Instructor: Dr. Elizabeth Greene, Associate Professor
Course: CLAS 4P28/5V28 – Archaeological Ethics
Program: Classics
MUSEUM EVACUATION SIMULATION
Undergraduate and graduate Classical students explore a range of ethical dilemmas related to conducting archaeology in the 21st century in Dr. Greene’s Archaeological Ethics course, including the history, process and principles of evacuating and protecting artifacts during a disaster. To reinforce the students’ learning, Dr. Greene invited an internationally-recognized expert on museum evacuation from the Penn Cultural Heritage Centre and Safeguarding the Heritage of Syria and Iraq (SHOSI) to run a museum evacuation training simulation using ancient pottery sherds from the Cypriot Museum’s teaching collection. During the simulation, which is also used to train military personnel, disaster responders and heritage professionals, students have 20 minutes to develop a strategy to safely move all the artifacts to a designated safe room followed by 45 minutes to systematically inventory, package and transfer the artifacts. According to Classics student Sarah Murray, “the exercise demonstrated how many factors have to be considered when cultural heritage artifacts are being evacuated to a safe location,” a lesson that is critical “in light of current political crises and recent catastrophes,” according to Dr. Greene. “This exercise provided students with hands-on experience in responding to a heritage emergency. Such scenarios reinforce the need for all museums to have management plans to safeguard the heritage under their stewardship, recognizing its value to local and global communities.”
Instructor: Dr. Pauli Gardner, Associate Professor
Course: HLSC 3P96 – Developing Healthy Communities
Program: Community Health, Public Health
Experiencing Age-Related Impairments: A Simulation Exercise
According to Dr. Paula Gardner, “experience is at the root of understanding”. Her commitment to student understanding was her motivation to include in an in-class simulation exercise to help her students better understand the daily challenges and obstacles older adults face. The simulation was one component of the Through their Eyes project, a community-campus partnership that gets undergraduate public health and community health students out into the community to learn firsthand the strengths, challenges, and opportunities for making communities healthy places. Dr. Gardner designed the aging simulation to meet the following learning objectives:
- Develop an appreciation for the effects age-related changes in sensory-motor function have on daily living activities
- Increase knowledge of the physical requirements for accomplishing tasks basic to community living
- Increase sensitivity to the feelings engendered when functional skills are impaired and independence is compromised
- Explore the accessibility of our environment (as both physical and social spaces)
Students gathered into groups of three and assumed one of three roles in rotation: 1) the senior, 2) the caregiver, 3) the researcher. By assuming different roles, students experienced the simulation through different lenses.
After completing the age-related impairment simulation activities, the entire class participated in a meaningful discussion about their individual experiences with the simulation exercise. Each student was asked to reflect upon a number of questions, including:
- What happened while you were out there?
- Did you experience any difficulties?
- Describe your feelings about this experience.
- What changes did you observe? – about yourself? – about other participants? – about other people responding to you?
- Does the experience stimulate thoughts about the reactions and behaviours of older individuals who have some form of impairment?
- Does the experience suggest changes in your feelings or behaviour towards aged individuals?
Instructor: Dr. Eric Dolansky, Associate Professor
Course: MBAB 5P05 – Marketing Management
Program: Master of Business Administration (MBA)
multi-week marketing strategy simulation
Instructors: Dr. Sheila O’Keefe-McCarthy, Assistant Professor; Dr. Karyn Taplay, Associate Professor; Julie Rivers, Kerry Shoalts, Lisa Boyd, Breann Hadley.
Course: NURS 4P20 – Leadership in Nursing & Management
Program: Nursing
CODE BLUE WORKSHOP
“As part of Leadership in Nursing Course – NURS 4P20, I offered to conduct a meaningful, and useful workshop for the fourth year nursing students to help them prepare for their pre-grad clinical experience. I had offered a code blue scenario, a septic patient or an emergency anaphylactic shock scenario and they all wanted the code blue. I partnered with our collaborative partners at Loyalist College and I struck the Brock-Loyalist Simulation Education Collaborative Team together to develop, design and deliver the experiential code blue workshop” – Sheila O’Keefe-McCarthy
