The use of Digital Simulation as a branch of eLearning has seen significant growth, particularly during and after the Covid period. While eLearning is generally easier for general subjects with its computer and internet requirements, STEM subjects with experimental components rely on various simulation tools. The application of Digital Simulation in eLearning has witnessed remarkable growth. The Covid period brought about restrictions and limitations on traditional hands-on experimentation, leading educators and learners to explore alternative methods.
Digital Simulation emerged as an invaluable solution, offering a virtual platform where students could engage in simulated experiments and gain practical insights. This shift resulted in an increased recognition of the importance and effectiveness of simulation tools in STEM education. These tools provide a safe and controlled environment for conducting complex experiments and allow students to explore different scenarios. Therefore, I am particularly interested in delving deeper into this specific niche, as it possesses immense potential and stands out among other educational technologies.
I see this blog post is very informative about simulations in STEM education: https://cadrek12.org/spotlight/simulations-stem-teaching-learning
Thank you for the post Terrence. The article you linked is very interesting because I expected it would be largely about having students use simulations to enhance their learning, so I was surprised when a large part of the article was about a pre-service teacher using a simulated classroom to improve their teaching mastery. This shows how many different opportunities there are in this space for further applications. The educational uses are near infinite, as well as applications used by military, aviation, healthcare, and many more industries.
I personally use simulations frequently while teaching physics and science. I exclusively use free simulations such as PhET (https://phet.colorado.edu/), and yet I see from this report that the ‘virtual training and simulation industry’ is worth about 300 billion dollars which will increase to nearly a trillion dollars by 2030 (https://straitsresearch.com/report/virtual-training-and-simulation-market). I will be keeping a close eye on developments in this market, and one day I hope to contribute a digital game or simulation to the science education industry myself.
Hey Terrence,
Thank you for your analysis of digital simulation for STEM education! As Braden pointed out, there is much opportunity in this field, as future economic growth will rely on STEM to build out infrastructure or support high technology, such as AI, and the other infrastructure related to maintaining AI systems, servers, and environments. One article in the blog that you posted was the expansion of haptic and non-visual simulation education to support students with disabilities to succeed in the STEM. I find this market projection useful to the broader community of educators as I see an opportunity to have academic markets, buyers and teachers to increase STEM education in this population of students. In relation to AI, I can see Digital Stem education for students with disabilities to be a test of AI to utilize and execute best practices for digital education with visual needs to be able to learn STEM in a digital setting.
One of the promises of learning technologies and AI is to be able bring equity to learners with visual impairments to learn STEM. Globally the need for STEM careers is becoming an issue to recruit into and having the opportunity to bring this education to those who traditionally were not able to be exposed to education can be a gift. Below is an article on the insights of digital learning tools in a global setting
https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/industry-reports/digital-learning-tools-market
Hi Terrence,
Classroom simulations for pre-service teachers is a brilliant piece of technology for the broader education community. It is something I had never heard of until today and I think it could be extremely beneficial for teacher education programs to adopt.
Most teacher education programs consist of mostly classroom theory, followed by some in-the-classroom time, and then a one semester internship. If the classroom theory could be supplemented with teaching simulations, pre-service teachers would be able to apply their knowledge in a controlled environment before getting into the real classroom. From my experience, once you get into a real classroom and suddenly get hit with behavior issues, students with complex needs, absenteeism, language barriers, and everything else you have to deal with in the classroom, theory can go out the window and be replaced by reacting in the moment. By practicing teaching strategies in simulated environments before entering the classroom, pre-service teachers would have a better chance at entering the classroom with a solid base of practiced skills.
The challenge for the learning technology specialists would be to create a simulated classroom environment that is realistic enough to account for the variety of challenges that teachers face in the classroom. It would be very useful for the simulation to have a variety of levels that teachers would need to navigate through. It could start with teaching a single concept to a single student and then build up to teaching more complex concepts to a large group of students with a wide range of ability levels, which could even incorporate reviewing their student support plans before the lesson to ensure that they are receiving appropriate accommodations, teaching strategies, and support.
In the future I would seek out future versions of this report. I would be curious to know how this technology is used in teacher education programs. I would most like to know what variables are integrated into the simulation, and if the simulation can be tailored to different learning environments (examples: students with learning challenges, students with complex needs, students from different cultures, students who do not speak english as a first language, etc). If I found out about a version that was designed specifically to work with students in remote northern communities for example, I would be very interested to see if it properly addressed challenges faced by teachers in these communities. If it did a good job of addressing these issues, I would recommend it to teacher education programs where high levels of their graduates end up working in northern communities.
A number of different reports were referenced in this thread. The most interesting link is not a projection but rather an example of how technological substitutes for work integrated learning are applicable to a wide variety of student needs beyond traditional simulations. The Developing Preservice Elementary Teachers’ Ability to Facilitate Goal-Oriented Discussions in Science and Mathematics via the Use of Simulated Classroom Interactions project (https://cadrek12.org/projects/developing-preservice-elementary-teachers-ability-facilitate-goal-oriented-discussions-scie – now archived), focused on giving preservice teachers the opportunity to get practice in a safe space to make mistakes before they went into the classroom. I think this has great value to educators and entrepreneurs because it points to a significantly wider market for simulation learning than has generally been explored up to now.
As outlined in the recent Understanding AI Workforce Skills Needs report (https://bher.ca/assets-documents/Understanding-AI-Workforce-Skills-Needs.pdf) published by the Business and Higher Education Roundtable and the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute, employers are increasingly focusing on soft skills with entry level hires. I suspect that AI-powered simulations, similar to the one for preservice described above, will play an increasing role in helping students develop their critical thinking and interpersonal skills.
As well, the Educase 2026 Horizon Report* (https://library.educause.edu/-/media/files/library/2026/5/2026hrteachinglearning.pdf), briefly highlights advances in 3D model generation, which I think will be the major unlock that leads to much wider availability of simulation as a supplement or substitute for work integrated learning. As one of the report panelists observed, “This is a huge step for instructors and institutions that don’t have the resources to create their own VR work and don’t want to use off-the-shelf products that don’t really meet their needs.”
The report I will return to, is this Virtual Training and Simulation Market Size from Straits Research: https://straitsresearch.com/report/virtual-training-and-simulation-market, as I am curious to see whether the sectors projected growth from 500 billion today to 1.5 trillion in 2034 continues on its current trajectory.
*The Educase 2020 Horizon Report is covered in a different thread