Jeroen Pruyn: "You can also start small"

This Story of Education is written by Agaath Diemel

When Jeroen Pruyn was a student, visits to and internships at shipyards were still a matter of course. In his Education Fellowship, he brings back that aspect of practical experience via virtual reality. “We noticed that students are no longer able to speak maritime language,” says the Associate Professor in Maritime Engineering. 

Master’s students in Maritime Engineering all take part in the Maritime Business Game during their first year of study. “Students play the role of shipowner, in groups of three. They have to analyse the market, purchase a ship and then operate as a company for the first year,” explains Jeroen Pruyn. That sounds simpler than it is. With the game, students learn all about the legal, economic and logistical background. They draw up a business plan and afterwards write an annual report that they present to the ‘shareholders’. In this, they reflect on their success – or lack of success - and how this came about. In this way, all the complexity of operating a shipping company is addressed. 

The game has had a very good reception. “Some students work until deep in the night to do things even better, even though I say that’s not necessary,” tells Pruyn. “One of the things I like most is that I sometimes meet former students at a conference or trade fair, and even years later they still know exactly what they did wrong in the game. It’s something that really sticks.” Pruyn is currently teaching the course in seven degree programmes at four institutes in the Netherlands and beyond. He also sees cultural differences. “At the University of Singapore, you see that students almost always choose to do business in the same, safe region with a wide offering of cargo. European students often dare to take more of a risk.” 

Common thread 

The Maritime Business Game is a common thread running through Pruyn’s career. He has been working on it since his graduation in 2003. Designing the game, a joint initiative with the University of Antwerp, was his first assignment at TU Delft. “The idea was to use a business game to get students of ship production and shipping management more acquainted with the economic aspects of the sector; and conversely, economics students with the technical aspects. I had good computer skills, so I was asked to make the first version and the accompanying teaching materials. Now I’m working on Version 5.0.” 

Several years after the game was introduced, Pruyn started his PhD research. He developed a new model which presents the economic developments in the shipping sector more realistically. This C3ME model now functions as the basis for the game, and for part of his research. He is now working together with the TBM Game Lab to improve the user interface and the game experience. 

The game has had a very good reception. “Some students work until deep in the night to do things even better, even though I say that’s not necessary,” tells Pruyn. “One of the things I like most is that I sometimes meet former students at a conference or trade fair, and even years later they still know exactly what they did wrong in the game. It’s something that really sticks.” Pruyn is currently teaching the course in seven degree programmes at four institutes in the Netherlands and beyond. He also sees cultural differences. “At the University of Singapore, you see that students almost always choose to do business in the same, safe region with a wide offering of cargo. European students often dare to take more of a risk.” 

This game was also the reason for his Fellowship. “I have a growing interest in preserving knowledge. What stays with you once you’ve finished a course? As there are people who still know years later what they learned in the game, it seemed a good idea to put my experiences with it to better use in teaching.” For this, Pruyn focused on his first-year course in construction. “This was prompted by the fact that we used to have internships, excursions and practical assignments at shipyards and on ships. In the curriculum revision of 2013, many of these components were scrapped due to a lack of time and opportunities. The groups had become simply too large for this kind of activities.” 

And the shipyards have seen a lot of changes too. “Shipyard visits are very different than in my own student days and the years soon after. Back then, you could still walk around on ships that were under construction and – under supervision – take a look in the engine room. Nowadays, you can only really walk around the ship without going aboard, because of all the safety aspects and protocols. So students get far less hands-on experience of the things they are being trained for.” And that has consequences. “At a certain point, we noticed that students no longer seemed to be speaking the maritime language. And as they lack that experience and vocabulary, they can’t form any idea of what you are talking about as a lecturer.” 

‘Nowadays, you can only really walk around the ship without going aboard, because of all the safety aspects and protocols. So students get far less hands-on experience of the things they are being trained for.’ 

In order to give students some of that experience back, Pruyn used his Fellowship to develop a virtual mini internship for the first-year course on ship production. Students complete four exercises in virtual reality. For example, they have to operate a crane in virtual reality. “It’s only when you put on the VR headset that you get a real feeling of the proportions on a ship. Everything is very big and heavy, and working with a crane takes a really long time. It’s a great help if you’ve had an experience of that in VR, where the perspective is true to life. It gives them insight into dimensions. Using a set of kitchen steps to do something to the ceiling like you would at home doesn’t work on a ship.” 

Pruyn’s favourite part is the hybrid exercise in which students work in pairs to together take hold of a real piece of piping weighing around 30kg. “Then they have to move through the ship in the VR environment to take the pipe to the engine room and put it down in a certain place. That involves carrying it up and down and manoeuvring around corners, and back when it turns out you can’t make the turn. Then they experience just how difficult and hard it is.” Pruyn stresses that there is no danger to the students: they can always put the pipe down if it gets too heavy for them. “It’s more about the experience, that you have to first spend a quarter of an hour dragging that pipe around before you can install it, which is your actual task.” 

Practical context 

The learning objective of the VR practical is to be able to put what you have learned into a practical context. “We also see that it helps enormously in other courses later in the curriculum.” So Pruyn has plans to expand this kind of activity. He was recently appointed Lector at the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, besides his appointment at TU Delft. “I want to see if we can get our students to practise there on one of their ship simulators. Then they could experience, for instance, what kind of equipment is to be found on the bridge of a ship, and how that all has to be installed and connected. And it will give them a chance to see what your line of sight is from the bridge. It is good to encounter that sort of thing now and again during your degree programme.” Of course, a VR practical or simulation cannot compare to a two-week internship, but at least it’s a start, according to Pruyn. “It’s an attempt to in any case give the most important aspects of an internship a place in the curriculum once more,” he says. 

Senior Teaching Qualification 

As a part of his Fellowship, he was also planning to share his experiences at some Teaching Lab events, but nothing came of this due to the coronavirus pandemic. Pruyn made the best of the situation by earning his Senior Teaching Qualification during his Fellowship. “That is all about educational renewal and innovation, which ties in beautifully with what I’m working on.” Meanwhile, he regularly talks to lecturers about gaming in education. “I often say, you don’t have to start with a whole course as a game, like I did with the business game. My VR practical is also only for a couple of hours, but the reactions of the students make it worthwhile. So you can also start small.” 

Pruyn is now also Director of Education for the Bachelor’s degree programme in Maritime Engineering. “Hopefully in this position I can introduce more of this kind of activity. I recently spoke to the Director of Education of Mechanical Engineering about the possibilities for an online programme choice check. It’s a real challenge to arrange that on campus for their approximately 1,000 first-year students. But if you can get them to do it as an online game where they go through a number of labs, you can bring the programme a lot closer and give them a feeling of what they are letting themselves in for.” 

‘My drive for innovation in education continues unabated’ 

Pruyn has also submitted a proposal for the 2022 Comenius Senior Fellows programme. “With this, I would like to give skills training an extra place in the teaching and also look on an individual basis at which goals students need to attain or which they can skip. For example, if they have already achieved the right level of presentation or programming, they can focus on other components. This way, there is more attention for personal development,” he tells. “We have seen over the last two years just how important that is. Since then we have introduced a mentorship for the first six months. This is leading to higher BSA pass rates, because students are more aware of themselves and their own effectiveness. So these are the developments I’m working on right now. My drive for innovation in education continues unabated.”