Transforming education with Evolution

Transforming education through innovation is crucial for engaging students and fostering meaningful learning experiences.

At the University of Kent, Rebecca Smith and her colleagues are pioneering new approaches to teaching and learning, with a particular focus on leveraging technology to enhance student engagement and collaboration.

In a recent interview, Rebecca shared her insights into the university’s use of Evolution, a cutting-edge business simulation software developed by our team at SimVenture.

Finding technology to help transform education

Q: Why did you choose to use Evolution?

Rebecca Smith: “We picked Evolution because we’re really interested in innovating our teaching style. We’re always trying new things, finding new ways to connect and collaborate, bringing our students together, and increasing engagement. Evolution, in particular, is a great product.”

Transforming education with Evolution, the powerful business simulation for higher education.

Rebecca highlights the initial experience of using the software:

Rebecca Smith: “We all tried it ourselves and were hooked from the first minutes of playing it. We enjoyed playing it, so it was something we wanted to share with our students. The package itself is super intuitive and easy to use once you know the basics.”

She also emphasises the support provided by our company, SimVenture:

Rebecca Smith: “There was a really good wraparound package of support provided by the company [SimVenture], which was crucial. Knowing that if we ran into a problem, we could reach out to someone who could answer our inquiries was very important. We’ve had someone come in and do training with us. It was a total package.”

Rebecca concludes by stressing the importance of technology in transforming education:

Rebecca Smith: “Really, it was about using technology to improve education, which is something you’ve got to be interested in when working in Higher Education.”

Transforming education by increasing student engagement

Q: How did your students respond to the experience?

Rebecca Smith: “It’s really interesting, actually, because we use Evolution in lots of different learning situations. We don’t just use it with our undergraduates and MBA cohort; we’ve also used it with further education colleges we do outreach work with, and with higher years in secondary schools as well. So, it’s a really broad range of people we’re engaging with this software, but the response is always the same.”

Rebecca describes the typical reactions from students:

Rebecca Smith: “They’re like, ‘What is it?’ And then you get two types of people: those who dive in and try to break it immediately, and those who want to be led through the initial training stages quite carefully. But once they’re in, the response is just phenomenal—they’re insanely enjoying it. You can hear the buzz in the room. They’re talking, trying things, saying, ‘Let’s rewind it,’ ‘No, let’s do this,’ ‘Let’s do that.’”

She also highlights the organic competitive aspect when students use the business simulation:

Rebecca Smith: “And then, of course, the thing you can’t ignore is that it’s a competition. We always say it’s not a competition, it’s about learning, but it so is a competition. They love it. They say, ‘We’re going to do it again because we want to get this. Who’s on the leader board?’ It’s just that really different aspect of it being about teamwork, everyone having different roles, and trying different roles. That natural sense of competition is just so much fun to watch them respond to.”

Meaningful impact for learning and teaching

Q: How did using Evolution make you feel?

Rebecca Smith: “I think that the challenge in education is to make learning exciting and fun. When you go into a room of students and you know that they are learning by doing, engaging, collaborating, and growing as people—it’s incredibly rewarding. They’re not just learning information; they’re figuring things out and growing as individuals. That’s the most exciting thing, seeing people develop right in front of your eyes.”

Rebecca shares a specific example of student engagement demonstrating how Evolution has helped transform education at the University of Kent:

Rebecca Smith: “On the last MBA, there was one group in particular who spent over 40 hours interacting with Evolution. Far beyond anything we’d expected, but they were like, ‘We just got so into it, and we just had to keep going; we needed to know where we could get to.’ That’s the testimony, isn’t it? That a group of people were so into it, they went above and beyond the brief, but they still wanted to continue.”

She concludes with the personal fulfillment she gets from using the online business simulation:

Rebecca Smith: “If you can be a part of that experience as an educator, you go home and you know you’ve done a good job. The levels of engagement we get with students using Evolution are just incredible.”