Robert recently used NewShoes in an intro to marketing course there, and found “the students’ enthusiasm for learning and for competing against each other running a business was really amazing.”

Robert's college education began in Montreal, where he was born and raised. He studied International Business and earned a Bachelor of Commerce at McGill University, used a computer-based simulation while completing his M.B.A at the University of Toronto, and finally earned his Ph.D. in the fields of Strategic Management and Public Policy from Concordia University, in Montreal.

In addition to his vast teaching experience, Robert has worked in bank administration, commercial lending, and export finance as an employee for the Royal Bank of Canada, the Toronto Dominion Bank, and the Export Development Corporation.

Robert has used simulations throughout his teaching career, and chose MarketShare because “it provides a strong focus on brand management and wholesaler/retailer relationship management” for his graduate marketing class. He started using NewShoes in his Principals of Marketing undergraduate course because he values NewShoes' focus on marketing as well as the convenience of the included student assignments designed to teach key concepts in marketing management. Robert has increased the grade weight of the total simulation experience by including some of the team assignments and memos Interpretive has created for each simulation.

Robert also uses BizCafe, which he finds to be a simple, easy to start simulation “suitable for a very short-use period” such as the one-week non-credit “Sample College” program Saint Michael's runs each summer for high school students. Although Robert finds BizCafe to be the most basic of the simulations, he also says it's “effective for introducing core concepts of business management.”

Students find MarketShare the most complex, according to Robert, as it “requires students to carefully manage a large number of variables including the actual formulation of their product.”

Robert has received positive feedback from students on all three simulations, and notes that while the students in Afghanistan appreciate the different type of learning medium a simulation provides (as opposed to lecture courses), U.S. students thrive on the competitive aspects and are more accustomed to a variety of in-class activities.