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

Friday, May 21, 2020, 3pm via Zoom

Grace Axler-DiPerte, Facilitator

Participants:    Grace Axler-DiPerte (KCC BIO), Lorraine LaPrade (KCC LIB),

Kathleen Offenholley (BMCC MAT), Mary Ortiz (KCC BIO)

Meeting began at 3:04pm.

1. Grace welcomed everyone.
2. Grace mentioned we would discuss asynchronous games today.
3. Kathy discussed how to get an online discussion going with students. She suggested: introducing oneself, asking why students took the class, sharing good and bad math experiences, posting 3x per week.  We discussed what we could do in a stats class, as Mary mentioned having difficulty getting the students to participate.  Kathy has a book coming out titled, “Teaching Math Online”.  Have the students report something online.  Mary shared having students flip a coin to test the 50/50 chance of heads/tails.  Could pool the class data.  Also, Mary mentioned the “game” she plays in class with students where she gives each student a different set of 4 cards, each with a criterion for the Binomial Distribution, and the students have to determine if their set of cards meets the criteria or not, and why.  She could create a set of online criteria and have students challenge each other.  She could use this as a participation component.  Discussion Board could be used with this asynchronously.
4. Kathy said for the 2^nd exam she had students make up questions and had another student solve them.
5. Mary suggested the website eSkeletons.com to Grace for BIO11 in the fall.
6. Lorraine sought ideas for games in an online workshop she teaches on databases (ex. career, APA citation). Maybe she could give each participant a fact to look up, or give each participant an incorrect citation, and have them correct it.  Kathy provided the link for the library from City Tech:

https://games.commons.gc.cuny.edu/category/information-literacy-games/page/2/

You can also go to the CUNY Games network, click on Teaching With Games and then Literacy.

7. Grace explained we may need to play games asynchronously in the fall and provided a PPT presentation titled, “Games People Play NOT Together”. She mentioned Jack Box Games (you need a computer to see the game and a phone as the game controller).  Grace demoed Drawful2, which is similar to Pictionary, via jackbox.tv. These games are synchronous.
8. Some asynchronous games that can be played via discussion boards, were disucced. An example is “Two truths and a lie”, which can be modified for online. She then went over and demoed three games: Code names, Scattergories (synchronous or asynchronous), and Scavenger Hunts.  These are 3 simple games.
   1. “Code names” – she went over how to play this game and modify it. Discussion followed.
   2. “Scattergories” – Get a topic and a letter of the alphabet. “yellow” and “b”, and come up with things that are yellow and start “b”, such as banana.  You can time this, work on an honor system, have challenges, or give awards or points for unique answers.  Another example: “types of knits”, where some possible answers could be linen, fleece, terry.
   3. Scavenger Hunts – Post a picture with no explanation and challenge students to fit the category, what do the pictures have in common? Challenge students to post (ex. foods made with microbes, have other students explain choices).  This is a good way to get students involved.  Even if it doesn’t work the first time, you can try it again.  Discussion followed.
9. Grace will send out a post-survey and we can send it to KCTL.
10. Grace thanked us for coming. We will continue in the fall, perhaps keeping the Zoom format so a wider audience from CUNY may participate.  Janine will help with this.
11. Meeting ended at about 4pm.

Notes respectfully submitted by Mary Theresa Ortiz, KCC Bio

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