HADLEY — Choosing the color and style of garments to be sold, the prices customers should expect to pay and how these products will be displayed are among decisions an owner of a clothing store makes.
The end result of those choices is either a successful company – or one that fails.
For many high school students across the country, this step-by-step decision-making process is part of a high-tech laboratory experiment that allows them to experience what it’s like to work in the the real world, without facing real-world consequences.
This simulation focused on fashion, which will be available around Dec. 1, is the latest educational software created by Knowledge Matters, a company founded in Northampton in 1997. It relocated to offices in Hadley during June.
The company specializes in developing curriculum for high school students to improve their knowledge of the business world.
“Typically our simulations put a student in a situation where they are controlling a number of different aspects of a business,” said Peter Jordan, the company’s president and CEO.
In this virtual world, students are given the opportunity to make decisions and then watch, as time unfolds, how they work out, getting financial reports and balance sheets showing revenues and expenses. They also learn to understand terms such as assets and liabilities, and those used in specific fields, such as CMTP, which Jordan said stands for “cut, make, trim and pack” in the fashion industry.
While these simulations can be the backbone of curriculum in some high school business classes, Jordan said often they serve to enhance more conventional learning.
“I’d say most teachers are using them as a supplement to the curriculum,” Jordan said. “We’re big proponents of a variety of methods of reaching students.”
The simulations are particularly useful for students who learn visually, he said. They “will engage and highlight talents that might be missed otherwise,” Jordan said.
Jordan started Knowledge Matters after observing a growing interest from young people in playing video games, such as SimCity which was created in 1989, and Civilization, launched in 1991.
“We set out to try to leverage that into the education market,” Jordan said, adding that he thought he could take both of these concepts, in which players use a strategy to develop a city or a civilization, a step further.
In 1998, the company obtained a research grant from the U.S. Department of Education to begin designing education simulations, first testing its software at Northampton High School. That test focused on retail simulations because a job in retail is the first experience in the workforce for many teenagers, Jordan said.
With nearly all students in 2016 interested in technology, and teachers more willing to incorporate the use of computers into their lesson plans, Jordan said there has been an explosion of interest in simulations.
Previously distributing everything on CD-Rom, Knowledge Matters moved to cloud computing so their content can be delivered online. “About three years ago we saw it begin to take hold,” Jordan said.
Ideas for simulation concepts often come from the teachers who are looking to add to their courses. Once a new simulation is picked, such as fashion, conversations begin.
“Then we try to find individual experts and do interviews with them,” Jordan said. “We get a feel from them what’s out there in the industry and what we should be incorporating.”
It takes about a year to move from a concept to finished product.
For the fashion simulation, the company worked with national retailer Men’s Wearhouse and the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles, and also consulted with a recent graduate of the institute who is doing design consulting in Milan, Italy.
Earlier, for creation of a restaurant simulation, the company talked with the late Daniel Yacuzzo, former owner of Eastside Grill in Northampton.
And Glenn Wong, a retired professor from the Mark H. McCormack Department of Sport Management at the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts, was used as a resource in making the sport management simulation.
“People are very willing to share experience about business,” Jordan said.
Knowledge Matters currently has nine full-time employees, primarily engaged in producing simulations and using the proprietary engine that drives the product, as well as people with marketing expertise.
A lot of time goes into the artwork and creative editing to develop what Jordan calls an “isometric, quasi-three dimensional world” that students enter.
“Sim programming is very, very difficult,” Jordan said, noting the challenge for the coders who are trying to model the real world in a realistic way, with some level of predictability. “In the end, that is trying to create a tool that educates.”
To give students a rich experience, the simulation uses “finite element models,” in which each computer-generated customer coming into the clothing store has attributes such as what they like for apparel and how much money they can spend. But the elements can’t be too elaborate, as each lesson needs to fit into a 45- to 60-minute window, meaning the decisions students must make are pared down.
“What are the key cause-and-effect relationships that we want them to understand?” Jordan said. “The student has to be able to come in and within 45 minutes have a real learning experience.”
He estimates that about 9,500 of the 20,000 high schools across the country have used Knowledge Matters products. The most popular is personal finance, and is one of the most common in high schools as learning to manage money becomes an important topic.
Victoria Durfee, who teaches business classes at the Tri-County Regional Vocational Technical High School in Franklin, said in an email that infusing technology into her course through simulations is important to student learning.
Her financial literacy course is using the virtual business simulation which shows students how to manage a budget and understand the expenses and responsibilities in renting an apartment, purchasing a car and owning a home.
“Virtual Business has changed the way students are learning financial and business concepts,” Durfee said.
The simulations also have the support of various high school organizations, including the Distributive Education Clubs of America, an international association of marketing students, Future Business Leaders of America, Business Professionals of America and Family, Career and Community Leaders of America.
While mostly used in classrooms, some students are using streamlined versions for national competitions, or “virtual business challenges.” A total of 3,204 students across the country are already enrolled in the latest competition.
Jeff Rutherford, who handles public relations for Knowledge Matters, said that as a privately held company, revenues are not disclosed.
But during the last school year, virtual business simulations were used in 14,232 high school classes by 215,088 students. These students completed 2.13 million simulation-based assignments, spending 2.16 million hours working in the simulations.
Jordan expects the company to continue to grow, and recently teamed up with Idea Collective in Easthampton to create a logo showcasing the building blocks that go beyond high school to college classrooms and corporate boardrooms. Colleges will be a growth area, since their students can focus on business more than high schools where students may choose from only one or two business elective classes.
In addition, corporations may soon seek simulations to educate current employees. Jordan said Marriott Hotels is interested in a simulation project and Knowledge Matters employees recently went to Bethesda, Maryland, to offer their expertise.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
