User opinions
"Truly unique! My students loved it. I loved the flexibility. I integrated content from India's colonial period. More than engaged, I could hardly hold my students back. They applied content and had fun. I'll pass this on to other teachers."
Matt Baughman - Michigan
Matt Baughman - Michigan
"The strength of the approach is its attractiveness to students ...to get the students to think about fundamental economic concepts. Nicely done!"
Patrick Conway - University of North Carolina
Patrick Conway - University of North Carolina
"Our experience was preponderantly positive and [SimCEO] was much more realistic, challenging, and engaging than the paper/pen stock trade simulation we played prior to it."
Mary Kinsman - Burr Ridge, IL
Mary Kinsman - Burr Ridge, IL
"[the students are] psyched about this. I even have had enquiries from students who aren't in either of my high-school classes ask to play. There was enough "buzz" from last May that students remember and are interested!"
Melanie Mallinson - Cape Town
Melanie Mallinson - Cape Town
| simCEO Solutions | Limitations of Other Simulations |
|---|---|
| Students CREATE the companies and therefore can better evaluate the business idea. | Do students really understand the companies in which they are investing? Or, are they simply investing in popular companies? |
| Companies all start at $20.00 so students can first evaluate companies (which start evenly valued) and then assess how much they would be willing to pay for a share. | Is this a fair expectation of what we expect students to be able to do? If the market determines a "correct price" for each company, then traditional simulations are actually asking students to not only evaluate companies, but evaluate them versus the public's perception (current share price) of this company. |
| With due diligence researching, students have a strong chance of evaluating companies successfully by devoting a reasonable amount of time to the process. | How much time should we ask students to devote to learning about the basics of investing? Everyone has a difficult time determining stock selection (including professional analysts!). To be successful requires a significant amount of time analyzing what can be an almost endless stream of data. |
| The suggested timeframe is ten years (of fictional time) allowing students to focus their energies on finding successful companies instead of quick trading. | Simulations with fictional shares encourage high risk transactions (in order to win) due to the short timeframe of the simulation. |
As an Effective Learning Resource
Flexibility: From mission statements, to available natural resources, to PEG ratios, the instructor can customize the degree of complexity that will be covered during the simulation. simCEO also is flexible enough to provide easy connections to disciplines outside of economics.
Relevance: simCEO puts students in a situation where they have to create, write, and reason for an authentic purpose - to demonstrate quality in an attempt to persuade others. Student work has more meaning than simply being graded by an instructor. Accordingly, the quality of student work is greatly increased compared to traditional assignments.