Performance Simulator: learning from real situations

We distinguish between experience-oriented, competence-based and situation-related learning. What matters is closeness to the actual work. A generic scene with an arbitrary company background would miss precisely the specific requirements. We therefore clarify with subject-matter owners and learners which situations are representative and which competences can be observed in them.

Arbeitsergebnisse: Ein auf die Tätigkeit bezogener Kompetenzrahmen; Beobachtungskriterien für Wissen, Haltungen und Fertigkeiten; Eine Grundlage für die Auswahl passender Lernsituationen und die Reflexion von Kompetenzen.

We clarify the target group, skills needs, available scenarios and technical delivery. The platform, access and integrations that can be used are agreed for each assignment.

Several steps lead from the learning need to the simulator. First, focus groups and their critical situations are identified. Subject experts describe the required behaviour and possible decisions in vignettes. From these, digital learning scenes are created in which participants try out alternative courses of action. A virtual coach explains the cases and gives feedback. The simulator combines experiential, competence-based and situational learning. These labels are only valuable if the simulation reflects a real task of the target group.

A generic scene can supplement a training course, but cannot explain a company's specific requirements. After the digital exercise, decisions are reflected on and applied in practice. Supplementary face-to-face formats or e-learning can be useful for this. Before a new assignment, the tool, rights of use, technical infrastructure and the appropriate way of measuring success are examined. The professional core remains the practice of relevant work situations.

A possible project sequence consists of simulator design, production and competence development. Already at the design stage, it must be clear which decision is practised in a scene and what feedback makes professional sense. In production, the situations are portrayed in such a way that learners recognise them from their working context. In the subsequent competence development, results are not assessed in isolation, but combined with other learning formats and actual application. Technical implementation and availability are checked for every new assignment.

A learning scene should contain precisely the decision in which the desired competence shows itself in everyday work. Only then is its feedback professionally useful.

The Performance Simulator develops learning cases from situations that are relevant to success. The client and people with knowledge of the work first select a target group and recurring decision situations. These are described as vignettes and translated into alternative courses of action. In the simulator, a person can try out decisions and receive feedback from a virtual coach.

The experiences are then discussed and related to the real task. The quality of the learning case depends on whether the situation is genuinely significant for the target group. We therefore examine not only the use of the format, but also its later application at work. Which technical version and which functions are available today must be clarified before a current offer is made.

One application example comes from the field of education. Under the title “Leading in the classroom” (Führen im Unterricht), a simulator shows short, concise film scenes from everyday school life: a situation escalating in the corridor, a mobile phone in class, an explanation that does not get through, or a conversation with parents. Three questions arise for each scene. Did the teacher perceive what it was about? Did they engage in resonance? Were they able to bring about a solution? The basis is a model of how learning works in which a trusting relationship dialogue is the precondition for the learning dialogue to take effect.

The scenes serve as prompts for peer dialogue: teachers experience how differently they perceive the same situation and learn from one another. The simulator is explicitly not an assessment. In a suitable learning setting, it leads up to the stage of conscious competence; an internalised attitude only develops through a shared language, continuous practice and peer exchange. In this example, the simulator is therefore designed as a system intervention and embedded in a structured programme with an introductory day, accompanying materials and guidance. Individual competence training with single-user access was explicitly not intended.