The Bellows Institute’s Mobile Development Simulator
The Bellows Institute has completed construction of its Mobile Development Simulator.
The Bellows Institute founders (left to right): Dr. Orlando Blake, Ph.D.; Irma Federico, M.B.A.; Annette Brink, M.B.A.; Steve Boyle, M.A.,M.S.; Netzin Steklis, M.A.(seated); and Dr. Dieter Steklis, Ph.D.
As another example of research-guided, integrative, practicum-based learning, The Bellows Institute has just completed construction of its Mobile Development Simulator. Teams of five students each will enter the Simulator after becoming immersed in a complex case history of an actual occurrence. The role-play scenario presented in the Simulator will reconstruct key decision points of the actual occurrence in order to illuminate the causes of organizational dysfunction and the complexity and uncertainty that is the signature of organizational dynamics. Well-designed role-play scenarios can create conditions in the Simulator that will help the students to further develop their proficiency in critical thinking, problem solving, collaborative creativity, organizational socialization, and ethical decision-making. Scenarios can be designed to develop proficiency in science, technology, engineering and math under realistic conditions. Other scenarios can be designed to develop proficiency in reading, writing, and bringing those skills to bear in affecting the decision-making process of the organization. Furthermore, the various scenarios will help students gain an increasingly sophisticated understanding of organizational dynamics in the non-profit work domain, the public service work domain and the for-profit work domain.
Over a sample four-hour scenario, Instructors who surround the student team in the Simulator will play roles of supervisors, co-workers, consultants, legal counsel, regulators, media representatives and others to create an ever-changing, challenging, realistic, task-oriented environment, while the student team presses forward to carry out an assigned set of goals within the four-hour deadline. The operation of the Simulator is best described as a continuous cycle of: (i) on-going research findings concerning student thinking and learning processes; (ii) changes driven by the research findings will be made in the physical workspace, the equipment, the role-play scenarios and the proficiency of the Instructors; and (iii) careful evaluations will be made of student learning outcomes to modify the research-guided, integrative, practicum-based learning environment in order to better prepare them for creative, productive and responsible participation in the emerging global society.
A case history example for Simulator application will be the Biosphere 2 facility in Oracle, Arizona. Student teams will meet the staff that operates the facility to understand the science, technology, engineering and math aspects of its operations. Overlaying that level of understanding, the student teams will meet several biospherians who spent two years living and conducting experiments in the sealed atmosphere that contained replicas of four regions of the Earth. And, further overlaying that level of understanding, the student teams will become familiar with the significant organizational ordeals and challenges created by engineering flaws, media attacks, loss of faith within the scientific community, interpersonal collisions, mission drift, power conflicts, extraordinary physical and mental fatigue, financial strains, and the very origins of the Biosphere 2 development team. In this context, the Development Simulator will have many scenarios that will immerse the student teams in those critical decision processes that determined the destiny of the project, thereby creating the conditions within the Simulator that have the potential to bring about the desired student learning outcomes.
A clarifying note: To perceive, and to refer to, the Development Simulator as a “vocational” exercise is to misunderstand its purpose and capability. The conditions in the Simulator have the potential to substantially improve the very skills that are the coin of the academic realm, namely critical thinking, problem-solving, approaching complex situations with a broad perspective, rational decision-making, and embracing the values of the commons, particularly given the dangerous realities of 21st century globalization.