Abstract:

The Brazilian Government has been recently discussing with universities the strategies to establish new methods and teaching techniques which motivate students and enhance the teaching-learning process throughout the country. As far as we, engineering professors, are concerned, the need of teaching-learning process enhancement seems to be the imperative core of the problem. In this sense, it is necessary to devise means that allow students to engage themselves in classroom tasks, analyze these activities critically, draw some effective insight from this analysis, and apply its results. Similarly is the process experienced spontaneously in one’s daily life called “inductive process” and its simple observation nature. On the contrary, an “established truth”, which we currently see in our classrooms, belongs to the “deductive process”. The previous paragraph claims a kind of learning called experiential learning. It is divided into five phases: experiencing (activity participation); reporting (sharing observations and reactions); processing (discussing the dynamics patterns); generalizations (inter-relating real world and principles); application (planning more effective behavior). The business game technique applies the experiential learning in an organized manner which differentiates it among others as a relevant higher-education quality improvement tool in institutions where the theory versus practice relation is strongly demanded. In order to ratify the business games effectiveness, a case study series applied to Industrial Engineering and Management classes at CEFET RJ, conducted from 2006 to 2010 is presented. Through these cases it can be inferred that the business game tool facilitates and encourages students learning, especially regarding to the National Quality Foundation Management’s Excellence Model requirements. This study also promotes identifying the areas where students of both majors – Engineering and Business – have learning difficulties or show their best skills. Finally, our experiment leads to the conclusion towards the teaching-learning process improvement in a public institution through this proficient business game tool.

Keywords:

Business Game, Simulation, Brazilian learning.