Simulation course – A little bit something for everybody?

摘要

Simulation and modelling course at the National Defence University (NDU) is aimed at learning how real-world models work, how to acquire data, how to visualize the acquired data, and to develop one’s understanding through simulations. The course ends with a group work, where participating students are asked to produce a working simulation model either from the given list or from their professional context.We use action research as our teaching paradigm. Action research is designed to bridge the gap between research and practice. This method guides towards real intervention, includes evaluative work and produces information that helps to find a better educational approach. Therefore, enhanced interventions are often seen as a cyclic process. This study describes two sample cases: The first one is a flight simulator that includes a lot of physics and physical phenomena. The second one illustrates modelling of Helsinki-Vantaa airport border inspection procedure which has statistical and logical nature.We show that the simulation course presented here can be recommended to any nature science students, because it offers a real linkage to the practical applications which are connected to the theory through simulations. For military officers learning is mainly practical, while in natural sciences learning is more oriented towards theoretical knowledge. In both cases simulation is a natural “bridge” in between theory and practice.