A common goal of applied science courses is to extend the cognitive skills of our students
by providing them with experience in learning and applying knowledge in the context of an
integrated picture of the discipline. Achieving this aim for off-campus students can be
problematic, and even in on-campus courses it can be difficult to allocate sufficient
in-class time to help the students integrate their knowledge in a whole-picture scenario.
Our solution has been to use online action mazes. An action maze is an interactive online
case-study: a simulated situation is created which mimics the strategic decision-making
of real life. The user is presented with an authentic scenario and a set of possible
courses of action. Once a particular course of action is chosen, the resulting outcome
is presented along with another set of options.
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