Once the Economy Simulator is live, you run it from the Round Control page: you see who has acted, set monetary policy, fire shocks, and advance the class from one round to the next. Afterward, the class analytics, each student's detail page and the final report help you turn what happened into a debrief. This article covers all of it.
Before you start: you need an Economy Simulator that's been activated for your class. If you haven't set one up, start with the Economy Simulator: teacher guide.
Opening Round Control
Click Classrooms, open your class, and click the Simulators tab.
Choose Economy Simulator in the Simulator picker.
On Setup, click Open Round Control in the Simulation Status card. Or, on Class, click Open Round Control on the Round tile.
Round Control opens as its own page; Back to Class at the top returns you to the classroom. While the simulation is running, the page refreshes itself every 15 seconds, so you can leave it up on your screen and watch submissions come in.
What's on the page
The round card at the top: Round 3 of 8 (for example), a status of Round Open, Frozen or Complete, the Pause and Advance Round buttons, and an Analytics link. Below them, a count of students in each role and the headline numbers from the last resolved round.
Submissions: "12 of 24 students have acted", with every student listed as waiting or with how many actions they've queued.
Government Watch: who holds the Finance Minister and Regulator seats, plus Fiscal Credibility, Regulatory Legitimacy, Treasury and Enforcement Budget.
Recent activity (resolved rounds): what actually happened in the last few rounds, in plain sentences. Fines and other violations show in red.
Monetary Policy (Fed) and Macro Events: your two levers, explained in the Economy Simulator: teacher guide.
Running a round
Start from the lobby. Right after you activate, the round card reads Round 0: that's the lobby, where students can see their role but can't act. Click Advance Round to open round 1.
Let students decide. Each student locks in their decisions for the round. Watch the Submissions card fill in. It shows counts only, never what students chose, on purpose: seeing decisions before they resolve would change how the class plays.
Adjust policy if you want. Update the Fed settings or fire a macro event now; both apply when you advance.
Advance. When the class is ready, click Advance Round once. It reads Advancing… and stays off until the round is resolved, so a double click won't skip a round.
Read the result. A blue panel shows how many transactions the round produced and its headline numbers. On students' screens, a recap of their round appears and the next round opens.
Repeat. Each click on Advance Round closes the open round and opens the next.
Because the first click only opens round 1, an 8-round simulation takes 9 clicks in total. When you advance past the final round, the status changes to Complete, the Advance Round button turns off, and the Analytics link becomes Analytics & report. Students' screens turn into their final reports.
There's no time limit on a round and no undo. A round ends only when you advance it, and a resolved round can't be replayed.
Pausing for a discussion
Click Pause to freeze the round. Students see a "Simulation frozen" banner and can't submit or withdraw actions until you click Resume. Everything on your side keeps working while it's paused, including Advance Round, so a discussion can end with you resuming the round or closing it.
Helping a stuck student
If a student queued the wrong actions or their screen got muddled, you can clear their round:
In Submissions, find the student. A Reset button appears next to anyone with actions queued.
Click Reset. The dialog explains that it withdraws every action they still have queued this round so they can start the round over, and that balances and resolved rounds are never touched.
Click Clear pending actions.
This works while the round is paused, so freezing the class, fixing one student and resuming is a handy routine. Students can also withdraw their own queued actions before you advance.
Reading the numbers
Gini Coefficient: inequality across the class. 0 means everyone has the same; 1 means one person holds everything. Watch it move when policy changes.
Avg Rent, Avg Wage, Avg Goods Price: the going prices in the round's three markets.
Unemployment and Vacancy: the share of renters without a job, and the share of homes standing empty.
Transaction Volume: how much money changed hands. A falling number often means a recession or a frozen credit market.
Fiscal Credibility: trust in the government's finances, out of 100. Accepting lobbying money costs it points, and low credibility means less of the tax owed actually gets collected. Ideally it stays at 60 or above.
Regulatory Legitimacy: trust in the Regulator, out of 100. Fair enforcement rebuilds it; unfair fines and accepted lobbying money drain it. Every fine the Regulator levies is scaled by it.
Treasury and Enforcement Budget: the government's money, and the part of it the Finance Minister gave the Regulator for this round.
Class analytics
For the bigger picture, open the Class view of the Simulators tab (or click Analytics on Round Control for the same analytics on their own page). Analytics cover resolved rounds only and load once; click Refresh after you advance to bring them up to date.
Tiles: Round, Inequality (Gini) with its change since round 1, Out of work or housing (students unemployed or homeless right now) and Pattern flags. Click See who on a tile to see the students it counts.
Trends over rounds: small charts of the Gini coefficient, average rent, wage and goods price, transaction volume, unemployment and vacancy, plus the spread of net worth across the class.
Transaction network: every student in a circle, with a line between any two who traded. Thicker lines mean more money moved. Hover a line to see who it connects. Government flows show as a Treasury node.
Lobbying ledger: every lobbying offer from resolved rounds, who made it, what they asked for, how much, and whether it was accepted, not accepted or withdrawn. An accepted Finance Minister offer pays the treasury; an accepted Regulator offer pays the Regulator personally.
Students: the class list with each student's role. Click a name to open their detail.
One student in depth
Open a student from the Students view of the Simulators tab, from the class list in analytics, or by clicking their name in Submissions. You'll see:
Their Net worth, Cash, Stress and Reputation.
Net worth vs class median: their line against the class median, round by round.
Pattern flags (explained below), each with the numbers that triggered it.
Lobbying involvement: offers they made or accepted, if any.
Transactions: every ledger entry they touched, newest round first, with violations in red and a Show more button for long histories.
Pattern flags
Flags turn decision data into talking points. They're heuristics for the debrief, not verdicts, and each one shows the evidence behind it.
Captured by lobbying (Finance Minister or Regulator): accepted lobbying payments. It's a warning at two or more payments or $500 or more in total.
Starved the Regulator (Finance Minister): funded enforcement in fewer than a third of the rounds, after at least 3 rounds.
Tends to hoard cash (any role): ended with most of their net worth sitting in cash, well above others in the same role.
Took on excessive debt (any role): owes 60% or more of their net worth.
Selectively enforced (Regulator): at least 80% of three or more penalties landed on a single role.
Exploited monopoly position (Landlord or Business Owner): owns at least half the housing and charges well above the average rent, or is one of only one or two businesses and charges well above the average price.
The final report
When the simulation is complete, open the report from Analytics & report on Round Control and then Final report, from Final report on the Class view's Round tile, or from Last simulation's report in Setup.
The report brings everything together: the class's final numbers (final Gini, average rent and wage, unemployment, treasury, fiscal credibility, regulatory legitimacy and lobbying accepted), the trends, the transaction network, the accepted lobbying, a table of every student with role, final net worth, change and flags, and a printable appendix with a block per student showing their net worth chart and flag evidence.
Click Download CSV for a spreadsheet of the class results.
Click Print / Save PDF to print it or save it as a PDF; the app's menus drop away so only the report prints.
Net worth depends heavily on role (a landlord starts with property; a renter doesn't), so compare students within a role, not across roles. The report says so too.
Grading
To put the Economy Simulator in the Gradebook, create an assignment for it. The Gradebook then suggests a score from each student's results, which you confirm or change. See Assignment types explained and Simulator scores in the Gradebook.
Tips
Keep Round Control open on your screen during the round. It updates itself, and the Submissions card tells you when to stop waiting.
Open each round with the previous round's numbers. "Unemployment doubled. Why?" gets students talking about each other's decisions.
Use the Transaction network and Lobbying ledger in the debrief. Students love finding themselves in the network, and the ledger settles arguments about who paid whom.
Print the per-student appendix for conferences. Each block is one student's story in a chart and a few sentences.
Common questions
Why does Round Control say Round 0?
Round 0 is the lobby. Click Advance Round to open round 1.
I advanced too early. Can I undo it?
No. A resolved round can't be undone. Students who missed it act in the next round. To avoid it, check the Submissions count before you click.
Why can't I see what students chose before I advance?
It's deliberate. The Submissions card shows counts only so the round plays out without the teacher's view shaping it. Everything appears in recent activity, the analytics and each student's transactions once the round resolves.
The analytics don't match Round Control.
Analytics load once and show resolved rounds only. Click Refresh.
Can I end the simulation early and still get the report?
Yes. Reset Simulation in Setup ends it, and Last simulation's report in Setup opens the report with however many rounds were played.