Article Summary
| Section | Key Points |
| Webinar Overview | The webinar focused on the benefits of using MonsoonSIM in accounting curriculum, featuring speakers from Michigan State University. |
| Survey Results | Surveys indicate high student engagement and interest in MonsoonSIM. |
| Course Objectives | Courses aim to develop core competencies like critical thinking, problem-solving, and effective communication. |
| Why MonsoonSIM? | MonsoonSIM is flexible, easy for instructors to use, and enhances both undergraduate and graduate program goals. |
| Implementation | MonsoonSIM is usually configured to be played across four 45-minute Game Days, focusing on various KPIs. |
| Student Feedback | Students found MonsoonSIM to be educational, fun, and valuable for understanding business operations. |
Accounting Curriculum with Simulation and Gamification
MonsoonSIM, in association with Michigan State University and the American Accounting Association, previously hosted a webinar on the 20th of July. The event, with the topic of “Why Teach Accounting Curriculum with Simulation and Gamification”, demonstrated how learning outcomes, learner understanding and skills development can be fostered through the MonsoonSIM platform.
Michigan State University, which ranked #25 in the Accounting curriculum and #1 in Supply Chain Management & Logistics (US News & World Report, 2023), was represented through the guest speakers of the webinar.
Professor Severin Grabski, who taught the graduate ERP course, and Professor Susan Convery, who taught the intermediate accounting undergraduate course, shared their valuable insights and students' experiences using MonsoonSIM within their classes.
MonsoonSIM offers an innovative, fun, and competitive activity designed for teams, providing convenience and ease of use to support the curriculum.
Revolutionize your accounting education strategy with MonsoonSIM's innovative approach to teaching and learning accounting.
A Brief Overview of Survey Results
The survey result captured above was from Professor Susan Convery’s intermediate accounting undergraduate course. The 4 rounds of surveys conducted from Spring 2021 to Summer 2022 reveal an increasing number of students who found the implementation of MonsoonSIM within their accounting curriculum to be both beneficial and enjoyable.
As for Professor Severin Grabski’s graduate ERP course, the 2 surveys conducted in Spring 2021 and Spring 2022 also shared similarly high interest and engagement rates amongst the students towards MonsoonSIM. This was also indicated by how many of the students wanted to continue using MonsoonSIM in their course to enhance their experiential learning journey.
With the positive reception from Michigan State University students towards implementing MonsoonSIM within their accounting curriculum, it should also be noted how the platform aligns with the course objectives. This is further explored in the subsequent section.
MSU Course Objectives
UG Intermediate Financial Accounting I Course
The undergraduate accounting course taught by Professor Susan Convery aims to develop various core competencies relevant and valuable to accounting students. These include:
1. Accounting professionals (which is the ability to apply accounting knowledge to business transactions)
2. Critical thinkers (which utilize quantitative frameworks for sound judgements),-
3. Strategic problem solvers (which develop alternative strategic options)
4. Agile and adaptive users of technology (which understand the flow of information within an organization)
5. Effective communicators (which develop interpersonal skills by working in teams to solve problems)
6. Diversity and inclusion (which work effectively in teams composed of diverse individuals.
Graduate Enterprise Systems Course
The graduate enterprise systems course taught by Professor Severin Grabski aims to develop understanding amount his students of:
1. How to develop and integrate technology to solve business and accounting problems
2. Leverage information technology to make informed decisions
3. Leverage fundamental ideas in data science to make informed decisions
4. Provide a conceptual understanding and hands-on use of an enterprise system and how it facilitates business management
5. The importance of communication within the organization, as facilitated and provided by the enterprise system and among team members
6. The role of accounting information in the enterprise
Why MonsoonSIM?
UG Intermediate Financial Accounting I Course
When asked this question, Professor Susan Convery explained that the MonsoonSIM platform was flexible enough to focus on inventory chapters in the intermediate financial accounting text, which brought about convenience and ease of use to support the curriculum.
Additionally, the dual mode of simulation and gamification found within MonsoonSIM offers an innovative, fun, and competitive activity designed for teams.
Regardless of whether the classes were taught on-campus or through online means via Zoom breakout rooms, Professor Susan outlined that MonsoonSIM can be adapted for different course modalities.
Furthermore, it is also relatively easy for instructors to learn to be game facilitators.
“A challenge is wanting to collaborate with a faculty that’s very large and even with a willing to cooperate faculty, it’s hard to find the time and the right forms to do that. What we want is to align the undergraduate goals with the graduate program goals…and MonsoonSIM helps with that.” Professor Susan explains, “I saw it quickly, it was innovative, fun and it was designed as a competition with teams that fit into the set of goals, we want for this first required accounting class.”
Graduate Enterprise Systems Course
Professor Severin Grabski says that although he has used different simulations in the past, whether it be SAP or ERPsim, it didn’t seem to have enough richness and integration with the curriculum as he wanted.
After attending the MonsoonSIM training session, Professor Severin expressed that he was very impressed with how the simulation managed to capture and update all the information in real-time.
Moreover, there was also complexity embedded within the simulation, allowing countless different configurations which makes the experiential learning process of students as they navigate their “virtual” company through the simulation very authentic, unique, and valuable.
In addition, just as Professor Susan had also mentioned, Professor Severin also liked the ease of use for instructors and facilitators and the “fun team learning experience” for students and learners. MonsoonSIM helps to bring forth countless different business theories and concepts and prompt understanding of it through the configured scenarios…all of which could be tailored to the needs of the classroom.
How MonsoonSIM is Implemented into the Curriculum
UG Intermediate Financial Accounting I Course
Professor Susan demonstrated that she usually runs the class by assigning student learners into teams of 3-4 people. As preparation before running the simulation, the class is required to read the Learner’s Instructions, watch the short introduction video, and then register their pre-assigned teams on the MonsoonSIM platform.
The simulation is usually configured to be played across four 45-minute Game Days, where Day 1 and Day 2 were practice round for students who are still acclimatizing themselves to the simulation, and the last 2 days were competition for points across a 90-day simulation period.
Overall, teams of her students compete across 5 key performance indicators, namely Net Profit, Retail Sales, Gross (Trading) Profit, Days’ Sales in Inventory and Return on Equity.
Graduate Enterprise Systems Course
For the Graduate Enterprise Systems Course, Professor Severin had organized four 100-minute class periods, where the first 2 classes used periods to familiarize student with MonsoonSIM. As the class periods progress, the level of complexity and difficulty can be increased by the professor such that the students are continuously given an opportunity to develop and improve.
The last 2 class periods are used for competition, using published KPIs to evaluate performance, ensuring that every competition day were scored separately based on KPIs and that the overall score based on team average.
In Professor Severin’s class, the students were evaluated based on team performance (the average rank based upon KPIs over 2 competition days) and individual reflection (from a reflection paper).
MonsoonSIM also offers a range of KPIs available to be recorded and tracked. With regards to KPI scoring, Professor Severin has configured the results to include cash on hand, gross profit margin, day sales in inventory, revenue, late shipment (vendor), net profit, space utilization, retail stockout, return on assets.
Valuable Lessons through MonsoonSIM
UG Intermediate Financial Accounting I Course
Besides gaining a deeper understanding and practicing the accounting theory, what Professor Susan’s students reflected from using MonsoonSIM were the connections that they could make between the game and the textbook, the factors that drove the team’s results when learning with MonsoonSIM and self-reflection on what they could do differently to improve.
For example, some insights that the students gained include learning how to distinguish between good vendors and bad vendors, understanding the supply chain issues of planning for the holidays because inventory tends to sell quicker and enough stock was needed, and many more.
One student shares their experience, “With the virtual climate that we are in, MonsoonSIM allows students to interact and engage with each other, considering we may not have the opportunity to do so outside of the class.”
“Highly recommended and enjoyable. It was entertaining and fun, but at the same time helpful and educational. I loved this game and found it unbelievably valuable to my education.” Another student says.
The simulation managed to capture and update all the information in real-time, offering an authentic, unique, and valuable experiential learning process for students.
Graduate Enterprise Systems Course
When asking the students what they thought about using gamification and simulation to learn accounting, one of them said, “The simulation helped me better understand how an ERP system works and could be helpful for a business. The simulation mimicked events that could occur like inventory stockout, cost increases, and competition. The ERP system aided the business processes to avoid and combat these issues in many ways. For example, forecasting can help a business buy the correct amount of stock. The ability to simultaneously track inventory and consumer demand in one centralized system can save time and money for a business.”
Additionally, other students have mentioned that the main concept they really recognized throughout the simulation was the power of information. Within a day of the simulation, being able to look at the demand for products, how many of the products they have, and ordering more accordingly, are all significant drivers of profit. Being able to capitalize quickly to the changes in the market, as they have discovered, is key in capturing the most income. Cumulative information systems are necessary for everyone to attempt to act optimally.
Unlock the secrets to creating dynamic learning environments with the ultimate guide to mastering and facilitating MonsoonSIM business simulations, a resource crafted for educators seeking to inspire through engagement.
One student explains, “I very much enjoyed our time using MonsoonSIM. I found it very interesting and educational, as I was able to understand all of the small items that go into a business and how everything can come together in order to make a business complete. It was also interesting to tackle all of the obstacles thrown at us, such as vendor shortages. I liked that MonsoonSIM is a good representation of an ERP system. We were able to conduct many business operations all through one unified system.”
Concluding Thoughts
From the curriculum case studies of Michigan State University and the accounting department professors that use MonsoonSIM to deliver quality curriculum and applicational opportunities for the studied theoretical concepts, MonsoonSIM remains to be the business simulation that both professors and students can rely on. This is all certainly done bearing the MonsoonSIM motto in mind, “More to teach, Easier to teach, More to learn, Easier to learn”.
Try MonsoonSIM for Free
Visit our Trial page to explore firsthand how MonsoonSIM can transform your teaching or training environment. This trial invites educators and business professionals to engage with our comprehensive business simulation platform, enabling you to integrate practical, hands-on business management and ERP scenarios into your curriculum. Experience the effectiveness of learning through simulation and see the real-time benefits it can bring to your educational strategies.
Frequently Asked Questions: Michigan Case Study
What specific courses at Michigan State University incorporate MonsoonSIM, and how does it align with their objectives?
- The integration of MonsoonSIM in courses like ERP and Business Analytics focuses on practical application of ERP systems, aligning with the objective to provide students with real-world business process insights.
Can MonsoonSIM adapt to different learning outcomes for various business specializations?
- Yes, MonsoonSIM is versatile and can be configured to meet a range of educational outcomes across specializations like marketing, operations, and finance.
What are the benefits of using MonsoonSIM for students studying advanced business modules?
- MonsoonSIM offers a dynamic and competitive environment, which is beneficial for students engaging with advanced business modules, helping them understand complex concepts in a practical setting.
How does MonsoonSIM measure and reflect the impact of student decisions in the simulation?
- The platform provides analytics and reporting features that measure the impact of decisions, allowing students to see the consequences of their strategic choices in real-time.
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