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Meeting Minutes Thursday May 31, 2018 at 11:30AM

Participants: Grace Axler-DiPerte (Facilitator), Mary Ortiz, and Michael Ortiz

  1. Resources: Previously gathered GBL resources can be found on CUNY Academic Commons in the Spring 2017 Folder.
  2. Michael discussed games he uses in his Sociology class.  Pictionary is used to introduce basic terms in preparation for more complex lessons.  Using about 15 minutes of class time.
  3. Mary uses games to stimulate interest and get students hooked on Biostatistics. Family Feud style games get faculty and students involved in co-designing the game.  Giving the students a competition to prepare for at the end of the semester can motivate their preparation.
  4. We discussed co-design and how peer judging and scoring can develop skills in students, and further engage the students not actively playing otherwise (in the manner of Apples-to-Apples).
  5. The FIG will continue in Fall 2018.

Meeting Minutes from Thursday May 3, 2018 11:30AM

Participants:  Grace Axler-DiPerte, Elizabeth Mulligan, Nicole Beveridge

 

  1. Nicole shared her experiences with Team Based Learning and IF/AT cards, Trivia games using analog methods and Quizlet are also helpful in her lessons.
  2. Elizabeth shared the results of her structure/function game developed in the previous meeting.
    1. Students were engaged and enjoyed participating
    2. Game would be better by refining the categories and adding pictures to make relationships between structure and function more clear.
    3. Used simple notecards to make the game, did not take much time.
  3. We discussed developing games to aid in “Deep Reading” and reading comprehension.
    1. Cut up reading and summarize meanings and have students make matches
    2. Students may write a passage for another team of students to interpret
    3. Scavenger hunts where students need to find clues or deeper meaning in the reading passages
  4. Next meeting will review results from these activities and look into ways to use games to stimulate interest prior to a lesson.

Meeting Minutes Thursday, March 29, 2018, 11:30AM

Participants:  Grace Axler-DiPerte (Facilitator), Elizabeth Mulligan

  1. We discussed a lesson for that was a bit dry and confusing to students.
    • Used Joe Bisz’s “Complex Mechanics” game cards to “gamify” the lesson.
    • Card sorting was discussed of pictures for structure, and words for function relationships in biology
      • Students can sort in teams to increase collaboration and discussion
      • Game could be made more difficult by using functions as sorting bins and pictures as materials to sort.
      • Game could go deeper into exploring a particular concept by changing the sorting bins and items.
      • Pictionary was also discussed as a good mechanic for exploring structure and function relationships.
  2. Discussion of ready made “educational games”. Why re-invent the wheel?
    1. We played a ready made game from “Genius Games” called Virulence. The game is themed around viruses, however did not provide much insight into the scientific concepts taught in a college level class.
  3. Next meeting will focus on follow up of how the previously brainstormed game worked in the upcoming lesson.

Game Development Worksheet

With plenty of inspiration from GBL resources around the Internet, I have compiled a brainstorming worksheet to help you start to structure your game or activity idea using a “backwards design” approach.

Game Development Worksheet

The GBL FIG Goes to the CUNY Games Conference 4.0

At this year’s CUNY Games Conference we were able to share our experiences across two semesters of our Faculty Interest Group.