Instructor Guide
A comprehensive guide to setting up, managing, and getting the most out of the Future of Work simulation for your class. From initial setup to grading and assessment, everything you need is here.
Create Your Account
Navigate to the Future Work Academy landing page and click Sign In. You will be redirected to Replit's secure OIDC authentication page. Sign in with your existing Replit account or create a new one using any email address. There is no separate password to manage — Replit handles all authentication securely. Once signed in, the platform administrator will assign you the Instructor role, granting access to the Class Admin dashboard.
Set Up Your Organization / Class
From the Class Admin dashboard, create a new organization (class section). Give it a descriptive name — for example, "BUS-301 Fall 2026 Section A." The platform will generate a unique enrollment code that you share with your students. You can create multiple organizations if you teach multiple sections or courses, each with its own enrollment code, teams, and simulation instance.
Understanding the Enrollment Code System
Each organization has a unique, case-sensitive enrollment code. Students can join your class in two ways:
- Direct invite link — Share the link displayed on your Class Admin dashboard (e.g.,
futureworkacademy.replit.app/join/BUS501F26). Students click the link, sign in, and are automatically enrolled — no code entry needed. - Enrollment code — Students can also enter the code manually after signing in. Share the code via your LMS, syllabus, or in class.
The invite link is the easiest option for most classes. If a code is compromised, you can regenerate it from the Class Admin dashboard without affecting students who have already enrolled.
Privacy Mode
For institutions that require heightened data privacy, you can enable Privacy Mode on your organization. When activated: no .edu email verification is required, phone numbers are not collected, email/SMS notifications are disabled, and students are identified by pseudonymous IDs (e.g., Student_abc12345). Download the offline roster template from your Class Admin dashboard to map pseudonyms to real student identities. Students are also encouraged to use a personal email for their Replit account for maximum privacy. This is ideal for community colleges, non-traditional programs, or any setting where FERPA compliance demands minimal data collection.
The Class Admin dashboard is your command center for managing students, teams, and simulation progress. Here is an overview of the key management features.
Class Admin Dashboard
A centralized view of your organization's enrollment status, team assignments, simulation progress, and communication tools. Switch between organizations using the dropdown if you manage multiple sections.
Adding Students
Students can self-enroll using the direct invite link (recommended) or by entering the enrollment code manually. You can also add them individually by email address. For large classes, use the bulk CSV import feature — upload a spreadsheet with student names and emails to enroll an entire roster at once. Invitation emails are sent automatically.
Creating Teams
Students work in teams throughout the simulation. Create teams from the Class Admin dashboard and assign students to them. Each team operates as an independent company in the assigned simulation (e.g., Apex Manufacturing in The Future of Work) with its own metrics, decisions, and leaderboard position. The recommended team size is 3-5 students for optimal collaboration and discussion.
Enrollment Status
Monitor each student's enrollment status: Active (enrolled and assigned to a team), Pending (invited but has not yet joined), or Deactivated (removed from the simulation). You can reactivate or deactivate students at any time without affecting other team members.
Starting the Simulation
Once your teams are set up and students have enrolled, start the simulation from the Class Admin dashboard. You can set the initial week (typically Week 1) and the simulation status will change to Active. All teams within the organization will begin at the same week.
Advancing Weeks
You control when the simulation advances to the next week. This allows you to pace the simulation to match your course schedule — whether you run one week per class session, one week per calendar week, or at your own cadence. When you advance the week, all teams move forward simultaneously. Students who have not yet submitted decisions for the current week can still submit retroactively, but they will miss the real-time pacing.
The 8-Week Structure
Foundation
Initial AI assessment and workforce analysis
Early Adoption
First automation pilots and employee reactions
Scaling Up
Expanding AI initiatives across departments
Resistance
Union tensions and workforce pushback emerge
Crossroads
Critical decisions with long-term consequences
Acceleration
Rapid change and competitive pressure intensify
Crisis Management
Unexpected challenges test leadership resolve
Legacy
Final decisions shape the company's future trajectory
Simulation Status Tracking
The Class Admin dashboard displays the current simulation status (Not Started, Active, Paused, or Completed), the current week, and key statistics like total decisions submitted and average scores. Use this to quickly assess overall class engagement.
Understanding what your students see and do each week helps you guide discussions, set expectations, and troubleshoot issues effectively.
What Students See
Dashboard
Company metrics, quick actions, and simulation progress at a glance
Briefings
Weekly narratives, voicemails from stakeholders, and curated intel articles
Decisions
Two strategic decisions per week with multiple-choice options and required essays
Analytics
Historical charts of company performance across all metrics
Leaderboard
Team rankings based on combined financial and cultural scores
Week Results
AI-graded essay feedback and metric changes after each week
Weekly Workflow
Each week follows a three-step rhythm: (1) Read the intelligence briefing and listen to voicemails, (2) Make two strategic decisions with essay explanations, and (3) Review the week's results including AI-graded feedback. Students must complete all three steps before the simulation advances.
Decision Types and Essays
Each decision presents 3-4 options with distinct trade-offs. Students must select an option and write a substantive essay explaining their reasoning. Essays are graded by AI on evidence quality, reasoning coherence, trade-off analysis, and stakeholder consideration. Simply picking an option without a well-argued essay results in a lower score.
Phone-a-Friend Advisors
Students receive 3 advisor credits for the entire simulation. They can "call" one of nine AI-powered advisors (strategy consultants, industry experts, or thought leaders) to receive tailored guidance on a specific decision. Credits do not replenish, encouraging strategic use. Each consultation produces a personalized audio response based on the advisor's expertise and the student's current company state.
Stakeholder Profiles
The simulation features 17 richly detailed stakeholders — from the CFO to the union steward — each with unique personality traits (influence, hostility, flexibility, risk tolerance). Stakeholders appear in briefings and voicemails, and their reactions actively influence how decisions play out. Students can click any stakeholder's name to view their full biography, or browse the complete Stakeholder Directory.
The simulation provides a multi-dimensional assessment framework that evaluates both quantitative outcomes and qualitative reasoning.
Financial Score
- Revenue growth over the 8-week period
- Cost management and debt control
- Return on investment from automation spending
Cultural Score
- Employee morale and engagement levels
- Union relations and avoidance of forced bargaining
- Workforce adaptability and reskilling success
AI-Powered Essay Evaluation
Every essay submitted by students is evaluated by an LLM-based grading engine using a structured rubric. The AI evaluates each essay across four criteria, producing a score and detailed written feedback for each dimension:
Evidence Quality
Does the essay reference specific data, metrics, or intel from the briefing materials?
Reasoning Coherence
Is the argument logical, well-structured, and internally consistent?
Trade-off Analysis
Does the essay acknowledge and weigh competing priorities and risks?
Stakeholder Consideration
Does the essay account for perspectives of employees, management, unions, and the board?
Scoring Bands (per criterion, 25 points each):
AI-generated scores provide students with immediate, formative feedback to help them improve week over week. As the instructor, you retain full authority to review, adjust, or override any AI-assigned score before finalizing grades. The platform surfaces the AI score alongside the original essay so you can make informed adjustments efficiently.
Full methodology documentation →Viewing Submissions
Access all student submissions, selected options, essay text, and AI-generated scores from the Class Admin dashboard. You can review individual essays and compare scores across teams.
Leaderboard Dynamics
The leaderboard ranks teams by combined financial and cultural scores. Students can see their ranking relative to other teams, creating healthy competition. Use the leaderboard as a discussion tool in class to explore different strategic approaches.
Week Results
After each week, students see a detailed results breakdown including metric changes, essay feedback, and narrative consequences of their decisions. You can use these results to facilitate class discussions about strategy and outcomes.
The platform provides detailed tracking tools to help you monitor student engagement and identify those who may need support.
Content View Tracking
Track which students have read their weekly briefings, reviewed intel articles, and listened to stakeholder voicemails. Students who skip briefing content tend to write weaker essays.
Decision Submission Monitoring
See at a glance which teams have submitted decisions for the current week and which are still pending. Send targeted reminders to teams that have not yet submitted.
Engagement Metrics
View aggregate participation metrics across your class: login frequency, average time spent on briefings, essay word counts, and advisor credit usage patterns.
Identifying At-Risk Students
Students who consistently miss deadlines, submit minimal essays, or show declining engagement metrics may need additional support. Use the monitoring tools to proactively reach out.
Keep your students informed and engaged with built-in communication tools that integrate directly with the Class Admin dashboard. Note: If Privacy Mode is enabled for your organization, email and SMS notifications are automatically disabled to protect student anonymity. Use your institution's LMS or in-class announcements for communication instead.
Email Notifications
Send email notifications to all students or specific teams directly from the dashboard. Powered by SendGrid, emails are delivered reliably and can include custom messages, reminders, or announcements. Pre-built templates are available for common scenarios: welcome messages, submission reminders, score updates, and end-of-simulation thank-you notes.
SMS Notifications
For time-sensitive reminders, enable SMS notifications powered by Twilio. Students who have provided a phone number will receive text messages alongside emails. This is particularly useful for deadline reminders and urgent announcements.
Custom Reminders
Create and schedule custom reminder messages tied to specific simulation weeks. Set reminders to fire automatically when a new week begins, when a deadline approaches, or at a custom date and time. All reminders are logged in the dashboard for your reference.
Bulk Communication
Target communications by audience: all students, specific teams, students who have not submitted for the current week, or individual students. Combine email and SMS channels for maximum reach. Track delivery and failure counts in the reminders log.
The simulation offers a 3-tier difficulty framework that allows you to tailor the experience to your students' level of preparation and course objectives.
Introductory
Designed for survey courses or students who are new to strategic business thinking. Decisions have clearer trade-offs, metric impacts are more forgiving, and essay expectations are calibrated for foundational critical thinking.
Standard
The default setting for most business courses. Decisions present genuine ambiguity, metric impacts reflect realistic complexity, and essays require substantive analysis with evidence from briefing materials.
Advanced
Built for capstone courses, executive education, or advanced seminar contexts. Decisions involve compounding consequences, metric swings are dramatic, and the essay rubric demands sophisticated multi-stakeholder reasoning.
11 Quantifiable Difficulty Factors
Difficulty is not a single dial — it is composed of 11 distinct factors including: option ambiguity, metric volatility, essay length requirements, stakeholder complexity, information density, time pressure simulation, financial penalty severity, cultural impact magnitude, advisor guidance clarity, decision interdependence, and cumulative consequence weight. Each factor is calibrated independently across the three tiers, giving you fine-grained control over the challenge level.
Choosing the Right Level
Consider your students' prior coursework, comfort with ambiguous multi-variable problems, and whether the simulation is being used as a primary assessment tool or a supplementary exercise. Standard is the right starting point for most courses. If your students are new to strategic thinking, Introductory provides a more forgiving experience. Advanced is appropriate when students have significant prior experience with case analysis and strategic decision-making.
Sandbox Mode allows you to experience the simulation exactly as your students will, without affecting real class data.
Preview the Student Experience
From the Class Admin dashboard, click the Enter Sandbox button. The platform creates a temporary test student account and test team, placing you into the full student interface. You will see the dashboard, briefings, decisions, and all other student-facing features exactly as they appear to your class.
Navigate Weeks Freely
While in sandbox mode, you can advance or rewind weeks using the sandbox controls. This lets you preview content for any week without waiting for the simulation to progress naturally. Submit test decisions and see how the AI grading engine responds to different essay qualities.
When to Use Sandbox Mode
Use sandbox mode before the semester begins to familiarize yourself with the content and pacing. Revisit it during the semester to preview upcoming weeks, understand what your students are experiencing, and prepare discussion questions. When you are finished, exit sandbox mode to return to the Class Admin view — all test data is automatically cleaned up.
Run the Simulation Yourself First
Use sandbox mode to complete all 8 weeks before your students begin. This gives you firsthand understanding of the content, decision difficulty, and AI grading quality — making you a much more effective facilitator.
Set Clear Weekly Deadlines
Establish firm submission deadlines for each week and communicate them in your syllabus. The simulation works best when all teams submit within the same window, enabling meaningful leaderboard competition.
Discuss AI Ethics Themes
The simulation raises rich questions about workforce displacement, algorithmic fairness, surveillance, and the social contract between employers and employees. Use these as springboards for in-class discussions.
Leverage the Leaderboard
The leaderboard drives healthy competition between teams. Share rankings in class, celebrate top performers, and use score differences to explore why different strategies produce different outcomes.
Review Essay Feedback
Read the AI-generated essay feedback for a sample of submissions each week. This helps you calibrate your own grading expectations, identify common student misconceptions, and prepare targeted instruction.
Optimize Team Size
The simulation works best with 3-5 students per team. Smaller teams ensure every member contributes meaningfully to discussions. Larger teams may lead to free-riding. Consider odd-numbered teams to avoid decision deadlocks.
Technical Support
For bugs, platform errors, or account issues, email support@futureworkacademy.com with a description of the issue and screenshots if available. Our team responds within 24 hours on business days.
Platform Questions
For general "how do I...?" questions about the simulation, use the AI Q&A Assistant available within the app. It can answer most questions about navigation, features, and classroom integration instantly.
Contact the Creator
For partnership inquiries, curriculum integration questions, or to schedule a personal walkthrough, reach out to Doug Mitchell, platform creator, at doug@futureworkacademy.com. Doug is available for guest lectures and faculty workshops.