Designing Simulations and Games: A Workshop for Health Care Professionals

Abstract

This article describes the important elements of a five-day workshop for teaching health care professionals to design and use simulation/gaming activities. Suggested guielines are identified for planning and conducting a workshop. The importance of early planning is emphasized by identifying the specific objectives of the workshop and preparing the staff to facilitate the attainment of each objective. The selection of staff and participants is discussed. A day-to-day description of a typical workshop is presented. Also included is a description of several content presentations which teach the workshop participants the required skills and knowledge in design, selection, research, and evaluation of simulation/gaming activities.

Designing Instructional Simulations

“…Such artificial manipulations of design procedures may cause learners to (1) waste time and become frustrated when attempting design, (2) create inadequate products, and (3) be unable to generalize design skills to new problems. Experience suggests that the following training strategies are effective (Locatis and Weisberg, 1980;Atkinson, 1977aAtkinson, , 1977b.…”

“…Some of the more crucial management concerns are timing and scheduling of training, publicizing training, selecting staff and participants, evaluating results and providing follow-through. A comprehensive and detailed treatment of these and other management concerns, some of which pertain to specific training programs in simulation design, may be found in several sources (Locatis and Weisberg, 1980;Whitbourne and Weinstock, 1979;Atkinson, 1977a;Winterberger, 1976;Simpson and Podsakoff, 1975;Davis and McCallon, 1974). Below is a brief discussion of some of the more general, crucial management concerns.…”