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

Wednesday, November 30^th, 2022 at 12PM

Grace Axler-DiPerte, Facilitator

Participants: Grace Axler-DiPerte (KCC BIO), Mary Ortiz (KCC BIO), Thomas Lavazzi (KCC ENG), Jeffery Delgado (KCC LIBRARY)

Meeting began at 12:00PM.

1. Announcements:
   • The CUNY Games Network is hosting “First Fridays” at noon on 12/2/22 and possibly on 1/6/23 (an announcement will be made on the CUNY Games Network website https://games.commons.gc.cuny.edu/ ). Use the link, ly/CUNYGAMESNETWORK, to join the meeting.
   • The CUNY Games Network is accepting proposals for the CUNY Games Conference 9.0, which will be held on 1/28 and 1/29/2023.
   • Visit https://games.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2022/12/03/cuny-games-conference-9-0-deadline-extended-to-12-19-22/ to learn more, or submit a proposal for a session by 12/19/2022.
   • Registration (free) is open at: https://forms.gle/waZ74PCN7o7huTNP6
2. Mary shared she is going to try and encourage students to think abstractly by completing a math problem for prizes at the beginning of her next lab session. She will use a timing mechanic (first group finished), and introduce levels (once an easy problem is finished, students are challenged with a more difficult one).
3. Jeffrey shared an information literacy game he is developing, which is a tabletop RPG.
   • We discussed character and story development, student choice, and scavenger hunts as a game mechanic in role playing.
4. Jeffery also shared that the KCC Library offers classes in Information Literacy to supplement existing courses at KCC. There is a link on the Library website to sign up.  The modules can be done in-person or online (synchronously or asynchronously).
5. Tom shared that he is continuing to develop his randomizer and Word Cloud activities using flippity.net tools, and will test his templates for students to use to develop their own activities based on coursework.
6. We finished the meeting by introducing TaleBlazer (taleblazer.org), a product of the MIT Scheller Teacher Education Program.
   • This is a free to use and play, cloud-based software that can be used to develop location based augmented reality games.
   • Next semester we will explore this tool in more detail and continue discussing existing ideas and development.
7. A doodle poll will be sent out sometime in February of 2023 to schedule the Spring meetings.
   • A doodle poll will be sent to the KCC Faculty list, and the current FIG mailing list. Contact Grace if you would like to join our mailing list for future meetings. Contact information is on the homepage or through KCTL.

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

Wednesday, October 26^th, 2022 at 12PM

Grace Axler-DiPerte, Facilitator

Participants: Grace Axler-DiPerte (KCC BIO), Mary Ortiz (KCC BIO), Thomas Lavazzi (KCC ENG), Victoria Somogyi (LGA ESL and ELA), Lilja Neilsen (KCC BIO)

Meeting began at 12:00PM.

1. We focused some more on the tools at net.
   • Tom has a wheel to randomize prompts to create narratives around advertising using the randomizer wheel templates for things like, place and situation. Then students develop a narrative based on the randomized prompt.
   • Word clouds can be used to structure a brainstorm for an essay assignment
2. We discussed how to make a flippity template shareable with a class, so that they can make their own tools for an assignment (like the word cloud or flashcards)
   • Save the Flippity Google Spreadsheet as a copy in your Drive
   • Change the name to the assignment name
   • Share as : anyone with link can edit
   • You can make the link smaller using tiny url or bit.ly .
   • Develop the template as needed.
   • Share the link with students with direct instructions to make a copy of the spreadsheet to their Drive first.
   • Remember to give the publishing and link instructions, students can share the link to submit the assignment OR upload the finished work as an assignment in Blackboard.
3. Victoria shared some techniques for an online synchronous and hybrid classes.
   • Breakout room drawings, like Pictionary
   • A commercially available game for use as a conversation starter.
     1. Students write stories to practice writing and grammar (ESL) and other students have to guess which story belongs to which student.
     2. Similar ideas could be “Two Truths and a Lie”, which can be modified for a variety of topics.

4. Grace did a demo of the Flippity Mad Libs function to create “Stories” where students can modify word problems to make them more random.
5. The previously discussed paper on student-designed Escape Rooms was mentioned.
   • https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/jmbe.00015-22
   • Heim AB, Duke J, Holt EA. Design, Discover, and Decipher: Student-Developed Escape Rooms in the Virtual Ecology Classroom. J Microbiol Biol Educ. 2022 Apr 7;23(1)
6. Next time we will continue to share resources, and wrap up the semester. We will also discuss the TaleBlazer game design tool.
7. The meeting ended at 1:00 PM. Please contact Grace for Zoom information, if you are interested in joining a future meeting.
   • Wednesday, November 30^th at 12PM

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

Wednesday, September 28^th, 2022 at 12PM

Grace Axler-DiPerte, Facilitator

Participants: Grace Axler-DiPerte (KCC BIO), Mary Ortiz (KCC BIO), Thomas Lavazzi (KCC ENG), Marta Cabral (CSI Curriculum and Instruction), Victoria Somogyi (LGA ESL and ELA), Felix Yusupov (KCC Flex Math)

Meeting began at 12:00PM.

1. Participants introduced themselves briefly.
2. We discussed how participants have used games in their classes, and what they would like to discuss in the FIG this semester.
   • Mary spoke about a game in her statistics class, where she gives students a scenario and they work as a team to determine if it meets the conditions for a binomial distribution.
   • Victoria spoke about how she uses progressive stories (where one student adds on to another’s work) to practice grammar. Each different, classes are very engaged in the game, but each class is different.  Games she uses work well in both online, hybrid and in person.
   • Marta spoke about how she organized her class into a semester long narrative “adventure”, based on a presentation by C. Stallard at a previous CUNY games conference. Her students seem motivated by competition and the narrative, which resembles a quest involving developing a curriculum in early childhood education.
   • Felix introduced us to KCC Flex and the immersion program, with math remediation no longer being a separate course. He is looking to use online games and tools to supplement his course and help students practice math skills.
3. We then discussed using a “big” vs. “small” approach in using games in a course.
   • The small approach uses a game to demonstrate or explore a single concept or group of set of learning goals.
   • Larger approaches might include introducing a multi-level quest, or gamification of the class by accumulating points or having earned certificates or badges to measure student progress.
4. Victoria shared the use of “Mad Libs”- type activities in her course. These are also available as an online activity using tools at flippity.net.
   • Blanks and stories are easily altered to explore writing mechanics (verbs, adjectives, present tense, etc), or other subject matter by asking the players to contribute numbers (for a quantitative problem or scenario), or vocabulary words. You might then ask students to read the story back and decide if the story makes sense as written, and then “correct”, improve or “solve” the story.
5. We discussed student-generated content, which can range from creating a Kahoot! or Nearpod game, or creating a portion or entire game to be played in person. Marta has used these strategies in her classes.
6. The meeting ended at 1:05PM and we decided on the following future meeting dates (please contact Grace for Zoom information, if you are interested in joining a future meeting.
   • Wednesday, October 26^th at 12PM
   • Wednesday, November 30^th at 12PM