1. INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION IN TECHNOLOGY
(SSI 3013)
GROUP B
SEMESTER 1 (SESI 2012/2013)
ASSIGMENT : STELLA
LECTURER : EN.AZMI BIN IBRAHIM
NAME : NUR HAYATI BINTI YUSOFF
D20101037419
2. SIMULATION AND MODELING IN TEACHING AND LEARNING
Introduction
In teaching and learning, there are important for a teacher or instructor to have good
teaching skill and various methods to use in class. If they can stimulate the students, they will
have a better chance at keeping them interested in learning more. But being creative offers more
benefits than just holding a student's attention. If teachers are able to present material in many
different ways, then, the students have a better chance of understanding it. Being a creative
teacher encourages students to be creative learners too. It is not really difficult to be creative in
this Information Age. The use of technology can helps a lot. Modeling and simulations are two
closely related computer applications which play a major role in science and engineering today.
They have become part and parcel of advanced learning environments, performance technologies
and knowledge management systems. These application help scientists and engineers to reduce
the cost and time consumption for research. They are also very useful in education field.
They help ordinary people to understand and be trained for something easily. For example,
at school, its provides students with the opportunity to explore the implications of using
simulations for teaching and learning, and in so doing to deepen their understanding of the role
that simulation can play in education and training. These explore different theoretical approaches
to learning and teaching most relevant to simulation-based education, and examine their
pedagogical implications in the instance of simulation use. It also considers important theoretical
debates around simulation in educational settings, including the transfer of knowledge from
simulated to real settings; provides the opportunity to examine how simulation technologies are
designed; and examines the different methodologies for evaluating their effectiveness.
Differences between simulation and modeling
The terms simulation and modeling are often used widely and synonymously. However,
there is difference between them. Modeling is creating a ‘model’ which represents an object or
system with its all or subset of properties. A model may be exactly the same as the original
system or sometimes approximations make it deviates from the real system. As an example, a
computer model of a ship may provide the 3D visualization of the ship so that user can rotate and
3. zoom to get a clear idea of the dimensions of the ship. A mathematical model is something
different from a 3D model. A mathematical model describes a system with equations. Modeling
can reduce the cost of a process and make the progress faster. As an example when you need to
build a ship you can create few models of it and find the best solution. This is not possible in
absence of modelling because you cannot build several ships and select one in reality. Therefore
present designers are able to optimize their design.
Simulation is a technique of studying and analyzing the behavior of a real world or an
imaginary system by mimicking it on a computer application. A simulation is works on a
mathematical model that describes the system. In a simulation, one or more variable of the
mathematical model is changed and resulted changes in other variables are observed.
Simulations enable users to predict the behavior of the real world system. As an example,
behavior of a ship can be simulated using a mathematical model describes the governing laws of
physics (fluid statistics and dynamics). Users can change the variable such as speed, weight and
observe the stability of the ship. Simulations are also used to train people for some specific
activities and react to unexpected situations. Car and flight simulators training drivers and pilots
are examples of such simulations. Simulations help designers to optimize their systems by doing
necessary changes and obtain good results. They can try deferent designs while changing
properties in virtual environment so that money and time can be saved. Users can run simulations
slower or faster than the real world and that may helps to figure out more details.
In simple, we can say that a model always tries to represent the actual system, but a
simulation may try to observe the results by doing impossible in real world changes. The
modeling also can be considered as a static and a simulation can be considered as dynamic as the
variables of a simulation get always changed. To use these application, teachers should know
why and when to use modeling and simulation. Both applications have been recognized as an
important tool in schools. Teacher can used it as one of their methods to deliver knowledge to
students. Modeling will exposed students more about what they are learning in class. As an
example, to study volcano, teacher cannot bring students to the real place where volcano happen
but with the creative mind of that teacher, he can build a model of volcano and use simulation
technique to show the volcano event. Besides, teacher also can use the software application from
the internet like STELLA.
4. STELLA
STELLA is a flexible computer modeling package with an easy, intuitive interface that
allows users to construct dynamic models that realistically simulate biological systems. Given
the combination of ease of use and modeling power, the STELLA system is ideal to interface
with student investigative experiences. In its most basic form, modeling in STELLA proceeds
in three steps constructing a qualitative model, parameterizing it, and exploring the model's
dynamics. A construction of qualitative model means a modeler will first define stocks which
like anything that can accumulate or change in number to build the model. Then, the students
quantify the relationship among elements in their model. STELLA allows both linear and non-
linear relationships to be expressed. Students must apply their understanding of biological
problem to assist in this process. The last step of the modeling exercise is to explore the model
output. Here, student can manipulate the parameters and observe the changes shown in the graph.
As an example, I used simulation on title Simple Natural Selection in STELLA. In this
model, foxes prey on rabbits. Foxes catch the slower rabbits, which favors an evolution over time
toward faster rabbits. This event is termed as natural selection. Natural selection is the gradual,
non-random process by which biological traits become either more or less common in
a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism
of evolution. The term natural selection was popularized by Charles Darwin who intended it to
be compared with artificial selection, what we now call selective breeding. Natural selection is
actually the process by which species adapt to their environment. Natural selection leads to
evolutionary change when individuals with certain characteristic have a greater survival or
reproductive rate than other individuals in a population and pass on these inheritable genetic
characteristic to their offspring.
Based on Darwins, the process of natural selections has several components. There is
variation in traits. Organisms exhibit individual variation in appearance and behavior. This
variation may involve body size, hair color and also number of offspring. Since the environment
cannot support unlimited population growth, not all individuals get to reproduce to their full
potential.
5. The graph shows the relationship between average speeds of rabbit and rabbit population
by year.
Figure 1: Speed bias is 0.
Figure 2: Speed bias is 5.
7. In this sample, the graph obtained shows the relationship between average speeds of rabbit and
rabbit population by year. Rabbit population by year depends on their average speed used to help
them run from fox. The slower rabbit tend to be catch by foxes and survive to reproduce less
often than faster rabbit. The rabbit evolve with time becoming faster rabbit in a way to escaped
from fox. The faster surviving rabbit reproduced to have faster baby rabbit due to heredity. The
trait has a genetic basis.
This model shows that different speed bias obtained the different graph. The rabbit
populations are influenced by the values of speed bias. This can be done by manipulate the
parameter (average speed). This simulation helps a lot in teaching students on topic natural
selection. As refer to figure 1, when the speed bias is zero, the numbers of rabbit population by
year also remain constant as the bias ‘kicks in’ year 5. This is due to the relationship of prey
(rabbit) and predator (fox). The rabbit need the speed to escape themselves from fox. The zero
speed bias means fox can catch them. That is the reason why the graphs do not show any
changes in their pattern. In the earlier, before the teacher run the experiment, teacher can ask
their students to predict what type of graph line will be produced. Some students may give the
right answer, but some of them may have no idea about the graph pattern. Here, teachers should
take roles to guide students get used to simulation. Teacher can start to change the speed bias.
Rabbit population start to increase in year six in the speed bias 5 in figure 2. This shows
that the increase in average speed has increased the rabbit population. The faster movement of
rabbit helps them a lot to avoid being eaten by fox. By years, the rabbit populations increase
because they can survive from fox. As we can see in figure 3, the rabbit populations rapidly
increase when the speed bias is adjusted to 25. The different of graph pattern produced are huge.
Rabbit happen to evolve from time to time to become faster rabbit. This is obvious especially in
speed bias 40 in figure 4. The graph produced also shows the big increase of rabbit population.
This proves that animals evolve to have advanced characteristic in their life. The natural
selection only chooses the best rabbit to stay alive. The chosen rabbit then reproduce with this
advanced characteristic. This characteristic then is passed to the offspring. Then, the number of
faster rabbit increase.
8. Simulation stimulates student motivation
As we can see above, the simulation exposed the students to a practical way of learning.
They can create experience, see and observe the situation by themselves. In normal experiment,
they just conduct the experiment, try to achieve the objective of experiment, follow the
procedure and get the results. They need to follow the rule of experiment in order to get accurate
results. If not, maybe they would not obtain any results. If this happens, the student may become
disappointed. They did not enjoy doing the experiment and starts to keep in mind that experiment
was burden. But, with simulation model, students surely can get the results. They know this. This
will stimulates them to have deep interest in what they are doing. They become motivated to
conduct the experiment and explore more about the experiment. Furthermore, in simulation
model, they run the simulation and straightly obtain the result. And the interesting part is they
can changed the parameter and see what happens to their result. This make them happy and feel
excited to explore more and more with the model simulation. I myself become excited when
exploring this stella software.
Besides, not all students like the formal things. Usually, only students from good class
have interest to conduct the experiments. Whereas most of them, especially students with low
grade did not have any interest in study. Most of them easily get boring when need to do things
like experiments. So, teacher must be creative to face this type of students. Before teachers can
create simulations to benefit learning, there needs to be an understanding of what makes these
simulations so motivating to students. To successfully implement a simulation model in the
classroom, teachers need to carefully consider several key factors. One such factor is play, which
is one of the most important motivators (Oech, 1990). Teachers often underestimate the powerful
effect fun has upon the learning environment. Teachers should change their style of teaching and
make the simulation like a game. This surely will attract student attention. As an example,
teacher can used this natural selection model as foster exploration game in which students live
through the world like fox and rabbit live. In this case, they feel more excited to explore the
simulation.
Researchers who studied educational games and simulations to determine how they can
effectively support learning agree game motivates students in learning. This Research in Brief
article provides an overview of this research, emphasizing how computer games and simulations
9. can best be used to support learning, citing research done with students with disabilities where
available.
Furthermore, students need to be challenge to gain their interest and motivation to study.
As is any learning situation, students are usually more engage when they face a challenge that
they feel they can meet. The level of challenge should match the student’s skill level. If the task
is too hard, the students will give up easily, and if it too easy, the student may become bored. In
this case, teacher can create and provides students with simulation that challenge their skill. The
students will get motivated to solve the task given. The teacher can ask students to assume a role
consistent with that task problem. With the aid of digital video footage or other graphic elements,
students can, via the computer, experience the situation like in real. As students click on various
objects on the screen browser, information for each item pops up. Students learn valuable
information from the database in their virtual visit. Continuing the journey, students encounter a
problem. Here, they must make the correct choices based on information gained during the
simulation. This type of learning are more exciting than the normal learning. Hopefully students
will always be motivated to study with the help of teacher by using simulation.
Prediction from simulation
Students can reflect on and explain what is happening, and predict what can happen in the
future through simulations learning. A good simulation was constructed from problems that
arise. When there is problem to be solved, simulation make students to be active. They have to
select parameter values, choose what to be tested, and collecting data. Data collection is usually
done carefully to obtain accurate study results. This teaches the students to be earnest in
performing a task. Furthermore, the data collected is needed to relate the problems and causes of
such problems occur. This is important to maintain the quality of a research. Once students
successfully collect data and study the problem in detail, the next action is the analysis of data.
Data analysis will be done to find out the characteristics, causes and why the problem occurred.
With the data, we will be able to reduce the effects and damage arising from the problem. This
can be done through the prediction of what will happen in the future based on the data collected.
An example like the prediction of natural disaster, after we acknowledge it, we are able to
act and take the necessary steps to deal with the problem. The ability to predict what will happen
10. benefit us a lot. From the data simulation, we also know the causes of the problem. Therefore,
we can strive to overcome the causes of the problem. Like everybody said, prevention is better
than cure. Early prevention is expected to reduce the impact of the problem. If we are lucky, we
did not only reduce the effects of the problem, but we managed to prevent the problem from
occurring in the future. This is necessarily the best for all. This can be proud of and prove that
simulation is part of the technological advances that actually help us in life. We should be
grateful and thankful with what we have. And therefore, appreciate and care for our
environment.
Advantages of simulation in teaching and learning
Hundreds of research projects have studied the effects of computers in the classroom.
Some researchers, like Cohen (1981), have concluded that computers are effective. Others, like
Clark (1975), believe there are serious flaws in many of these studies. Much of the discussion
about educational technology revolves around the integration of educational software and
simulations in the academic curriculum (Turkle, 1997). According to the researchers, they
believe simulations have the ability to expand upon role playing, as well as incorporate a variety
of other learning features, including peer collaboration or competition, fun, inquiry based
learning, goal oriented activities, and real life applications (Schank, 1997; Gardner, 2000). This
shows that simulation bring advantage in teaching and learning. They have engage the students
with active learning.
One of the advantages in using simulation for teaching and learning is less time
consuming. The time used to prepare apparatus in the conventional way of conducting
experiment can be use in observing and discussing the result obtained when data logger are used.
The result can be obtains instantly from the simulation model and graph are be plotted while the
experiment is still in the progress. Thus, student can spend time on figure out how the
experiment works rather than just focusing on data collecting. Simulation also increases the
accuracy of the result. They can record down the result in a much faster and frequent way. This
will increase the accuracy and precision of the experiment conducted.
Other than that, better learning outcome can be obtained. This is because the students have
more time to interpret the data. The plotting of data occur simultaneously with the on- going
11. experiment allows the student to link the data obtained with the observation. The student can
devoted more time on understanding the experiment and discuss among friends on the outcome
of the experiment. This leads the students to think critically. Thus, a better learning outcome is
achieved through the conductive environment. The students also can make their own analysis
and be able to predict what will happen in the future based on the data collected.
Besides, the simulation is an activity from a real situation, and so it can be said that they are
"virtually real". They simulate the activity so well that there is only a little difference between
the simulated environment and the real one, and the same kind of learning experience can take
place. They are hands-on activity which involves students so they become participants, not mere
listeners or observers. Students learn better from their own experiences than having others'
experiences related to them. In simulation also, we can remove the element of danger from the
situation and have chance to learn or explore what are not present in our place. For example, the
simulation about volcano, we still can see the explosion safely even though we are not in that
area. So, the incident did not bring any bad impact to us.
Furthermore, simulations can be paused, whereas real life cannot. Pausing allows more time
for students to assess what is going on. Simulations take into account the students'
developmental level. Some students need extra time to understand something. Their
involvement in the activity increase when extra time was given for them to explore the
simulation. Here, they will be empowering by the simulation because students take on
responsible roles, find ways to succeed, and develop problem solving tools as a result of the
interaction. What student gain from the simulation are the main objectives of learning, so the
simulations are well designed to encourage students to enhance the activity by contributing their
own ideas.
12. Disadvantages of simulation in teaching and learning
However, there are several disadvantage of using simulation in teaching and learning. Some
problems may occur in integrating simulation in teaching and learning. There are people whether
students or teacher himself who do not like to work on computer system as they think that the
uses of computer and simulation are complicated. Not all students are exposed to the use of
advanced technology. There are students who do not have computer at home. This type of
student usually has low confidents in using technology. They afraid to try because they keep in
mind that they maybe make damaged with the tools. Some of them may feel that, that was really
difficult. They need more time to learn thing from simulations. The difficulties they face may
make them become not interested to study. This becomes worse when teachers themselves do not
have interest to use simulation in teaching.
How can the teacher gain their students interest when they also have no interest in using
simulation for educations? It is a major problem in implementing simulation for education
purpose. Teachers also may have lack of skill regarding the simulation technology. It is a
problem when teacher cannot use the simulation tools properly. The teacher does not know how
to use the program. The difficulties of teachers in handling the devices affect student interest to
learn the topic. Thus, teacher must competent in handling all tools to improve the learning
process so the students can get benefits from that.
In addition, students may reduce the graphing skills practice and face the loss of
conventional methods of data collection when using simulations. The simulation may replace the
practical laboratory. They might just waited for the simulation and computer to produce the
graph and table and forgotten the method to collect data and draw the graph. In fact, it is
unnecessary that every experiment has to use simulations. The simulation is used when the
experiment needs a more accurate results and a long period of time for the students to get the
results. Moreover, since the simulation need current or battery to function, it’s inconvenient if
the experiment is carried out on outdoor especially in the area that without electrical supply.
Sometimes the simulation also may not functioning very well because of technical problem, thus
there are tendency we cannot obtain the accurate results in a time..
13. Conclusions
The use of simulation in teaching and learning has pro and contras. In my opinion, I agree
simulation can helps in education fields. Howard Gardner, the American developmental
psychologist has come out with his theory of multiple intelligence. His theory state that not only
do human beings have several different ways of learning and processing information, but these
methods are relatively independent of one another. This shows that every person like students
has their own characteristic and different style of thinking and learning. They cannot stick with
one type of learning only because they are different. Not all students can accept the traditional
approach of learning. If teacher were focuses on the same way of learning, they may loss their
interest to study. This can be endures with application of simulation in education. Simulation
have advanced technology that provide teacher various model to be used in teaching. There are
also different kinds of simulation. It just need teacher to be creative and explore this facility and
use it wisely to give the best for students.
Despite of having some disadvantages, we can take several steps to bear with that. For
example, the issues that teacher themselves have lack skill in using technology, The Ministry of
Education can provide the intensive exercise on how to use the technology to teachers. So that
they can apply it in teaching and learning process. Students also must be exposed to the
simulation technology to make them realize that the significant of ICT in technology.
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28,2012
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