The Edge - Issue 1 Simulation Games Explained By Graeme Codrington One of the most powerful teaching techniques is the use of simulation games. Simulation as a teaching technique is basically any activity designed to produce a feeling similar to the feel ing usually attached to a particular life experience. Let's take that definition apart. It can be a very carefully researched and designed game, for example, such as the kind now produced commercially. Or it can be a simple party game, like a scavenger hunt, adapted for the teacher's purpose.
Feeling is the key to all simu lation games.
In this context, feeling connotes genera ting an emotional state or combination of states. For example, the feeling a simulation game is designed to cre ate may be one of frustration, fear, or loneliness in the initial part of the game followed by a feeling of relief at the end. A popular example involves feelings usu ally associated with prejudice. It is possible to simulate a situation in which students who normally don't experi ence being victims of prejudice obtain the feelings related to that experience. So simulation is intended to produce particular feelings.