Speaker: Richard Gosselin, Interim Dean, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Houston Community College
In this presentation, attendees will actively participate in a simulation in which the participants take an active role in managing a manufacturing company in which it will bid for raw materials, choose the technology to produce different types of final products, and actively sell their inventory in the market. The actions of the participants determine the market prices in the raw material market and the finished goods market. There is even a provision for submitting split bids. Each “company” is able to build factories of different capabilities and productive power and of course, must incur fixed costs for their factories and warehousing their inventories. The simulation is useful in helping students understand and compute fixed costs, variable costs, and marginal costs as well as calculate profit. The attendees will not only be able to get experience in a dry run of the simulation but will also be invited to provide input on adding an additional dimension to the game so as to provide realism and additional coverage of other salient features that would be important in a microeconomics course covering costs of production and industrial organization. All attendees will be provided with the rules of the simulation as well as examples of the props necessary to launch their own simulation in the classroom. The learning curve for both the professor and the student is short and the dividends gained from a better understanding of economic costs and profits are palpable. The game is not just entertaining but provides a very effective pedagogical device that makes the learning of what might otherwise be a dry subject engaging and enjoyable.
