Playing With Virtual Money: How Gamification Is Changing The World Of Business Education

With Bloomberg’s virtual trading rooms, students of finance can now experience real-world problems in the classroom—but gamification is impacting business programs across the board

So-called Generation Y may be independent, enthusiastic, and tech-savvy, but because of shorter attention spans, they’re also the hardest generation to teach, some studies have shown.

For this reason, hackathons are becoming increasingly popular at business schools—intense, product creation challenges where business students often work with coders to solve global problems in a short amount of time.

But schools are also increasingly turning to another dependable way of engaging students with learning: video games.

Gamification, a way of introducing virtual game interfaces in the classroom, is now a feature of many business programs, especially those in the field of tech or finance.

Indeed, Bloomberg work with over 100 universities to incorporate virtual trading into the classroom, helping students gain practice in financial markets. Cass Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, and IÉSEG School of Management use Bloomberg’s financial trading rooms as a way of teaching students on their masters in finance programs.

Gamification is creeping into other business programs too. MIT Sloan offers free online business simulations for course directors and lecturers on broader MBA and Masters programs to teach skills like entrepreneurship, decision making, and strategy.