The “Watercooler” Applied Game [1781] Home : Annual Conference 2017

Public Group Active 5 years, 6 months ago

Tue, Sep 5 2017, 1:30pm – 2:50pm

Authors: Paul Hollins

Room: Gilmour Rm (G)

Theme: Learning Spaces

Type: 20-minute session

Description

In an Education system that is predominantly focussed on the assessment and reward of individual effort and achievement, engaging college students in collaborative project work that requires sophisticated and coordinated communication presents real challenges. This is situated in an environment where employers, increasingly, demand communication and collaborative team working skills as prerequisites for many roles in the digital industries. The Games Design industry is a typical example.

Students may also be quite isolated in their personal industry related practice (i.e. necessarily alone at a computer or drawing board for long hours of skills and software manipulation development), digital working methods and online lifestyle this complexity adds further layers of abstraction. To address these challenges Hull College, in collaboration with with academic and commercial partners, has produced the “Watercooler Game”.

“To bring about a transformation… an improvement of skills [and an] understanding of a phenomenon” – Mouaheb et al 2012.

In an innovative blended pedagogic approach, there are two scenarios; one as part of a module that applies traditional practical group working as a major part of the studio activity and the game, as an ongoing/” endless” scenario or virtual learning space They are used concurrently alongside the practical sessions, while in shorter courses the game can be used as an independent application

Both scenarios result in a series of short or extended gameplay sessions (as appropriate) followed by discussion with the tutor or lecturer undertaking analysis of the data collected by the game indicating player’s responses to stimuli designed to test their conflict management skills, attitudes towards equality and diversity in the workplace and team working skills.

The Applied Game is both an educational instrument and self-assessment tool, to focus students’ on particular areas for study related to strengths and weakness highlighted by the game.

This combination of gameplay analytic feedback, and tutor feedback formed the basis of an ongoing plan for the player/student transitioning to actual “live” group working scenarios.

In this session, the authors present their reflections on the rationale behind this pedagogic approach, their choice of applied game and production and application of the game. This is coupled with a short demonstration of the Watercooler game.

The authors will present their initial findings of the evaluation of game including quantitative response data from students and qualitative data from semi structured interviews. Evaluation is from a multi-dimensional perspective the pedagogic approach (Using applied games with a selected cohort, the technical approach adopted by the developers of the game (an open source asset based) and the efficacy of the game through evaluation of the learning objectives achieved by and reflections on learning of a cohort of fifty learners situated in the College’s School of arts and Fashion.

Attendees will benefit from the team sharing their experience of the development, production and application of the game in a college setting together with qunatattive and qualitative evaluation of the game and learning experience of real benefit to those colleges considering the application of Games Based Learning within their own colledge environmnet.

References

Mouaheb et al (2012) The Serious Game : What Educational Benefits? Accessed http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187704281202201X– Feb 2017

Nystrand, M. (1996). Opening dialogue: Understanding the dynamics of language and learning in the English classroom. New York: Teachers College Press.

Resta, P. & Laferrière, T. (2007). Technology in support of collaborative learning. Educational Psychology Review.

Singhal, A., Rogers2, E. M., & Brown3, W. J. (1993). Harnessing the potential of entertainment-education telenovelas [Journal article]. Gazene, 51, 1-18. Accessed http://utminers.utep.edu/asinghal/technical%20reports/harnessing%20ee.pdf – Feb 2017

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in Society. London: Harvard University Press.

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