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

Tuesday May 7th, 2024 at 12:00PM

Grace Axler-DiPerte, Facilitator

Location: Zoom

Participants: Grace Axler-DiPerte (facilitator, KCC BIO), Mary Ortiz (KCC BIO), Annice Paolino (KCC BUS); Cia Kessler (KCC KCeL), Lilja Nielsen (KCC BIO), Nathan Cooper (KCC ART), Mercedes Wilby (KCC HIS), Carrie Jedlicka (KCC LIB), Victoria Somogyi (LaGuardia CC ELA)

This meeting was online.

1. Introductions: New participants shared name, department and how they are currently/would like to use games in their classrooms.
2. Had a short recap of our previous meeting. Mercedes had tried making a connections puzzle for her students and also assigned them the option of making their own as an extra credit opportunity.
   1. We discussed how student generated games may make their thought processes more clear in learning the material.
3. Discussed how to gamify discussion boards using riddles and puzzles that students make, and their classmates solve.
   1. Grace provided two examples.
      1. Directional terms of the body.
         1. Students give each other “clues” that refer to a specific body region using anatomical and directional terminology. Their classmates then have to respond by guessing the region.
         2. Students use constrained language to explain a concept covered during the week. In this case I used “Up-Goer 5”, but similar work can be done with other constraints like single syllables, or avoiding a list of “Forbidden Words” (similar to Taboo).  Classmates then have to guess the concept and justify their response using evidence from the clue.
      2. Nate mentioned his tour at GUMBO, a space for game developers in Brooklyn. They have monthly events that may be of interest. https://gumbonyc.org/events
      3. Carrie mentioned the augmented tour of the library, several classes have used it to explore! Carrie and Mark are working on updates and expansions, and may need play-testers.
      4. Annice spoke about using cards in her classes to have students concept-map, as well as students assuming real-world “roles” when learning using Excel and Access.
      5. Reminder: KCTL now has several copies of the book: The Educator’s Guide to Designing Games and Creative Active-Learning Exercises: The Allure of Play, by Joe Bisz and Victoria L. Mondelli. Please contact KCTL for more information.
      6. Discussed use of Kahoot! games synchronously and asynchronously. Next meeting we will demo and try to create some Kahoot!s.
      7. Our next meeting will by at noon via Zoom on 5/28/24 (Tuesday).

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