A team of Ashesi faculty was named the first-place winner at the Global Business School Network (GBSN) Beyond Conference Capsim Faculty Simulation Competition. Held in partnership with Capsim, which develops interactive classroom simulation tools, the competition allowed faculty within the GBSN to design and build simulations to improve their students’ learning experiences. The Humanities and Social Sciences department faculty, Jewel Thompson, Takako Mino, and visiting lecturer Jennifer Seely, developed an ethical decision-making simulation based around Ghana’s mining industry. The team will be recognised as CapsimInbox authors and receive royalty rights for the use of their simulation, in addition to a cash prize of $5000.
“Capsim’s technologies present students with new tools to learn differently,” shared Takako. “We decided it would be a good learning opportunity for us, as faculty, to leverage our different strengths to develop tools that help students learn how to make decisions in the workplace.”
Overall, twelve teams participated in the competition, including a second one from Ashesi made of Josephine Djan and Esther Laryea, also faculty in the Humanities and Social Sciences Department. Other participating universities and GBSN members included the NYU Stern School of Business, the University of Miami Herbert Business School, Goa Institute of Management, and Institute of Business Administration, Karachi. Participating teams had to use their research, case studies, and experiences to develop a 45-60 minute CapsimInbox scenario. The winning team’s simulation will be available for use by students and professors around the world who use CapsimInbox’s simulations.
“In developing our submission, we sought to incorporate lessons from Ashesi’s classroom, building around competencies in leadership, ethical decision-making, problem-solving, and communication,” shared Jewel. “Ghana’s mining industry provides a sweet spot between being an important resource for the country while also being a space that is also severely affected by illegal mining and also environmental sustainability concerns.”
The experience with designing the simulation holds new insights for classroom engagement strategies for faculty; and also helps with the future design of practical coursework for students.
“I was very grateful to join the team,” shared Jennifer Seeley. “This was a terrific opportunity to design a tool that will keep students engaged and also help augment the work we do in our classrooms, whether in person or remotely.”
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