Games in Higher Education

[Lauren Hays]

Hello!  A colleague and I were funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services in October 2014 to create a library-based Center for Games and Learning at our university (MidAmerica Nazarene University).

Scott Nicholson from Syracuse University is serving as our consultant for the grant.  He has been extremely insightful and brought an amazing amount of knowledge.

We are getting ready to launch a research study on games in the classroom and we are hosting a conference on July 31, 2015.  We are still very early in our project so more information will be available in the future. 

I'd love to discuss what others are doing with games in higher education and to share about our project. 

Happy Gaming!

[Timothy Hutchinson]

I would love to get that conference info as it comes available.

Timothy Hutchinson

Teacher

Vista Innovation and Design Academy, Vista Unified School District

[Josh Schermer]

Hi @Lauren Hays I run a small business and I'm a personal coach and I've created a lot of games in both instances. I'll discuss a bit our training process here which is similar to being a class/education in case they are helpful and happy to speak further: 

The training method in my company has been created as a game. Instead of calling those who work with us "employees" we call them "players" and we start training by explaining the differences between an employee and a player. We find language is extremely important in educational games. Here's a link to one of those documents in case you're interested: click here

We structure training as a game where you want to level up to become a "master' of the materials. We structure this leveling up around the colors of karate belts. So they first earn white belt and so on until they reach black belt finally if they complete our 4 week training period. 

How might a day of the game look? Like this: 

The night before the "player" is given their "game materials" to study so they can come in the next day prepared to play, and to ask any questions they might have. 

The player comes in and we will play with a skill we've taught them and they will receive a certain amount of points. If they surpass a certain score they receive a surprise reward like a warm coffee on a cold day or an ice cream on a warm day. 

We also do "multi-player" games where they are put in a team and will compete vs other teams for rewards. 

A big part of games to use is the pursuit of mastery which is an intrinsic reward which keeps on giving. 

Not sure if any of this was helpful but either way look forward to hearing more about your project, thanks!

[Joana Ayala]

Wow, I love your company format and would love to apply a similar system to my own!

[Joana Ayala]

HI Lauren, your projects sounds interesting. My partner and I are currently working on an alternate reality  Creativity Enhancement Game for adults, not higher education but would love to talk about it as well as learn more about your project!