Game Based Learning (GBL) Faculty Interest Group (FIG) – Notes from Meeting Three

Wednesday, May 19, 2021, 1:30pm via Zoom

Grace Axler-DiPerte, Facilitator

Participants:    Grace Axler-DiPerte (KCC BIO), Amy Haas (KCC BUS), Olga Kagan (SPS CUNY),

Alex Mulligan (KCC BIO), Mary Ortiz (KCC BIO)

Meeting began at 1:30pm.

1. Grace welcomed everyone.
2. Amy shared her experience at the TATYC (Teachers of Accounting in Two Year Colleges) Conference. She shared using escape rooms in accounting. One presenter (Leslie Van Wolvelear at Oakton in Des Plaines, IL) did the whole semester as an escape room.  Amy will meet with Leslie and subsequently share with us.  This was creative and keeps the class engaged all semester.  Grace asked Amy to invite her to our meetings in the Fall 2021 semester.
3. Amy also went to the meetings Joe Bisz had and shared her experience. The CUNY Games network has been hosting monthly to semi-monthly sessions. You can find out more about it at: https://games.commons.gc.cuny.edu/ .
4. Grace spoke about the CUNY Games network and what it is. We discussed the CUNY Games Conference.  It is held at different CUNY locations with different formats.  They do brain-storming sessions.
5. At the last meeting, Grace showed us how to set up an escape room.
6. Grace asked how any game or activity we tried this semester went.
   1. Alex spoke about switching the grading format to a 1000-point grading system for the semester (# points earned / # points graded).  With this new system, fewer students asked about grades.  It was like a game (“gotta get points”).  Alex asked how to handle extra credit points in BlackBoard.  Amy gave some pointers on how to do this.  Discussion followed.
   2. Amy shared keeping things easier the first week of the semester so as not to bombard the students. Give the basics.  Discussion followed.  Consistency is important.  Grace shared how she organizes materials.
   3. Amy and Grace shared Kahoot experiences. Grace said students do it over and over to beat her score.  This tricks them into studying the material.  We discussed putting in silly answers to make it fun.  Adding pictures also makes it fun.
   4. Alex emphasizes to students that assignments are studying.
   5. Grace had students select a fungus on iNaturalist and research it. Maybe will have students look for particular fungi next time for points in a Scavenger Hunt.
   6. Mary encourages her Biostatistics students to look at problems as puzzles to solve.
   7. We discussed “Two truths and a lie”.
7. Grace and Alex did Up Goer Five. We discussed it and Grace demonstrated using it.  With this game you must explain something technical without using technical language.  You use the 1,000 most common words in the English language.
8. Next meeting will be in Fall 2021. We are not sure yet of the format (online, in person).  Next semester we will ask Kathy to share Mad Libs.  Grace asked us to let her know what we would like to do next semester.
9. We discussed CUNY Games Network Academic Commons. Notes from the “openspace” during workshops and conferences provide a lot of resources, and one example can be found here.
10. Meeting ended at 2:30 pm.

Notes respectfully submitted by Mary Theresa Ortiz, KCC Bio

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