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Transcript for Serious Games in Staff Development with Rachel Forsyth
“I'm Rachel Forsyth from the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching. This short video is about using games in staff development with particular reference to a board game that I developed to look at course approval and course validations. So, first of all, what do we mean by game-based learning or why do we have a game? The reason for this particular game was partly in order to share with participants some data that we collected as part of a large JISC project on curriculum design, and although we did write a formal report, I just thought it would be quite a nice way of sharing that data and getting people to actually use it by comparing the data that we'd collected with their real experiences.
The reason for doing that through a game rather than any other kind of activity is that the game gives a really safe place to explore decision making. And when you are talking about the regulatory aspects of course design then people quite often do make mistakes or get very anxious about particular things, and if you are doing that in a game environment and something goes wrong in the game, then nobody has responsibility. It is quite a lot more fun than it is if you make that mistake in real life. So games are a really good way of getting people to explore problems which they can then transfer their knowledge to the real from that, but without feeling threatened or anxious about it.
A good game needs to have clear goals, so in this case it was to play against another team and finish your course proposal before them. It needs to be fun. It needs to have some kind of a narrative so people feel like they are progressing along a particular route. I think a good game also needs to have opportunities for collaboration and sharing of ideas.
So, the game that you are seeing in this video is called 'Accreditation!' and the key underlying message of this is that when you writing a new course there are often compromises between speed, the time you have to spend on it and quality of the finished product. And so the game itself looks at different dilemmas that you might meet along the way of designing a course and it gives points, or progression points, or quality points according to how well you answer the question. So, a progression point would allow you to move around the board, so that is speed. A quality point will allow you to show how good your course is.
The game is a small part of the overall package of activities that people are doing in relation to this and for this particular example I tend not to set it up in any way; I just put out the game and people start talking about it. But then what we do afterwards is we debrief by talking about the dilemmas that people encountered and what they were doing in real life rather than in the constrains of the game if those things came up, or more importantly, how they would avoid difficult situations arising.
Now, in this particular game there are elements of chance that come in like losing your laptop with all the copies of course documentation on it or somebody being ill or somebody getting a job somewhere else and leaving you in the lurch and that kind of thing. So, there are always things that you can't anticipate directly but it gives an opportunity to discuss those possibilities and for people to be more prepared when they might arise.
We usually play for about 15 or 20 minutes. It unusual for anyone to have completely finished by then even though one of the rules is you can make up new rules and cheat! So, it's really not about getting to the end point but when people start playing the game that is what they think they are aiming for. But actually the point of the game is to have a sensible discussion about the issues that might arise.
So, in conclusion, I think board games can be quite a good way of getting people to engage with what might otherwise be dry research data, as in the case of this particular game that I have just mentioned. Also really good for getting open conversations going about a situations which people may feel a little bit sensible about.”