Jacinto Dávila Quintero

Assessing Student Learning in Game and simulation based instruction can be big challenge. Instructor may need intimate access to the game or simulation platform to integrate tests and probes into the gaming experiences, specially when they do not want to be noticed to avoid interrupting the flow of those activities.  Pre and post testing still seems to be a safe, possibly tiring, way to conduct evaluations in game based learning. 

There exists a wide range of free and open source technologies available to design and develop games and virtual worlds for learning. There is still a long way to go to make those tools readily available for most basic learning activities. 

Matching games and simulation against a curricula seems to be complex task. A game or simulation sufficiently realistic to be of any utility in learning, have to integrate knowledge and situation from several disciplines and subjects. So, it is, essentially, a multidisciplinary project. 

Game and simulation based learning is a complex enterprise that can produce extraordinary benefits for the learning process and to help students increase their knowledge and understanding. However, it may also become a heavy task to properly develop and maintain. 

Anybody had a similar problem: 

Error: Content launched outside of a supported LMS enviroment.

and

Warning: Course was unable to find the LMS API for GetDataChunk. Course may have been launched from scormcontent/index.html, or the course package is not within an LMS. Saving of student data will not occur.

It seems impossible to be critical without actually engaging with the content at hand. So, any active learning exercise increases the chances of performing critical thinking wrt to traditional learning. Let's go for it. 

To make our courses into active learning experiences requires planning and preparations in excess of what we used to do in traditional teaching. It is not clear who pays for that, but it must be done. 

The most worrying issue seems to be that students believe that active learning will be simpler and quicker than traditional learning.  It may be funnier, but it may also take more work and time than expected. We, teachers, must make additional efforts to correctly estimate those times. 

These lessons on Active Learning seem to be a clear admission that traditional learning has failed to engaged many students on they path to learn, specially with the arrival of new on-line teaching technology. It is all good news, anyway, as we, teachers, are now more aware that we must concentrate on engagement and reflective, critical thinking with the students while they are learning. An advise which is also very relevant in the new context of AI-assisted learning. 

A not-less-important activity the instructor is also responsible for is conflict avoidance and resolution. We must expect differences in behavior from students given their personal profiles. Those differences are likely to cause conflict if left unchecked. So, the instructor must manage the online environment to detect any possible cause of conflict and prevent it from arising. An effective way to do that is to engage in directly, private if necessary, interaction with the student involved. It is always important to remember that students may have or perceived good reasons to behave in ways that could be harmful to the learning… >>>