The Business Centre in Ontario Partner with Smartsims Business Simulations
The Business Centre in Ontario Canada have became a part of the experiential learning movement, using the MikesBikes Introduction to Business Simulation by Smartsims. Camille Canuto interviewed Bob Walpole, Project Manager at The Business Centre, to learn about what they do and why they chose MikesBikes to provide students with an experiential learning environment.
The Business Centre provide support to start-up and small enterprises during their first through fifth years of operation in the districts of Nipissing and Parry Sound by offering easy access to business consulting services and information concerning market research, business planning, management, marketing, technology and financing. They also create and deliver projects designed to give high school students experience in entrepreneurship which, in one of their projects, includes the use of the MikesBikes Business Simulation.
The Entrepreneurship Outreach Program has been renamed ELS or Experiential Learning Stream, and they have a series of projects designed to give high school students in their area some hands–on learning experiences involving some aspects of entrepreneurship. They run entrepreneurship leadership camps, and host entrepreneurship and social innovation workshops in Toronto, teaching students how to make better business decisions using MikesBikes.
They chose MikesBikes for its ease of use, affordability, accessibility and especially because they were able to adapt/simplify its excellent complexity to fit the needs and academic background/level of high school. They initially spend around five hours in total, teaching the students and going through the first two periods of the simulation. Students complete hundreds of “what if” scenarios to achieve the highest profits possible.
In describing the students’ experience with MikesBikes, they explain, “Students love the game and the competition among their peers. There are many Aha! moments. For us, it is a wonderful learning and teaching tool. Students learn about the inter-connectedness of input variables, how to isolate variables and how to interpret financial statements. We run in class competitions and an inter-school competition near the end of the semester”
The students learn very quickly that business involves many inter-connected variables required for success and how to structure decision-making to maximize results, and they love playing with the software.
To find out more about business simulation, strategy business games and business simulators please go to https://www.smartsims.com/ .