In February 2020, Ruth Kühn-Krawolitzki and Katrin Uhlenkotte from the Institut für Technische Betriebswirtschaft (ITB) of FH Münster travelled to India to conduct a simulation-based seminar with TOPSIM – General Management at the CHRIST University in Bengaluru.
With 11.4 million inhabitant (2018), Bengaluru is India’s third largest city after Mumbai and Delhi. The city is a centre of Indias’s civil and military aerospace research and industry. More recently, it has become one of the country’s most important IT centers, as many domestic and foreign computer and high-tech companies have settled here. This has earned the city the nickname “Indian Silicon Valley”.
CHRIST University has its origins in Christ Chollege, founded in 1969. The university describes itself as multidisciplinary and offers more than 21,000 students bachelor’s programmes in humanities, natural sciences and engineering, management, commerce and law. Since 2 years the cooperation with the FH Münster exists.
New forms of teaching and learning with the TOPSIM – Management Simulation
Thanks to the cooperation of the ITB with the CHRIST University, TOPSIM – General Management provided a completely new learning experience – according to the principle “Learning Business by Doing Business”. The simulation-based seminar took place as a block event, on 3 afternoons 30 students each played 3 periods in 2 blocks. Ruth Kühn-Krawolitzki and Katrin Uhlenkotte made the best use of the limited time available by holding an introductory event and evaluating the results after each period.
For the participants of the Master Oeconomics this simulation-based seminar was an exciting challenge, because often the learning contents are only conveyed in classical frontal teaching. Especially the concept of the teachers as learning companions was very well received by the students. The teachers deliberately are not actively helping students during the seminar, so that the participants can make decisions independently and with a willingness to take risks. Only the evaluation were designed in the usual frontal teaching. The focus on freedom of decision as well as the possibility to learn directly from mistakes was emphasized positively by the participants of the seminar.
It was a pleasure to organize the simulation-based seminar by faculty from FH Muenster, Germany. The classes were very well received by Christ University students . The students enjoyed learning through gamified elements.
Suniti Phadke, PhD at CHRIST University
We would like to thank Ruth Kühn-Krawolitzki and Katrin Uhlenkotte for sharing their experience and look forward to future projects.
In our picture gallery we have some impressions from India for you:
