Designing Game Based Learning - a Participatory Approach

2008

Game Based Learning seems to be an interesting new possibility of teaching and learning, but the effort spent on designing games and the possible positive outcomes have to be weighed carefully. The following paper describes the development process and the conceptual design of a simulation game on sustainability for teenagers. The design process is participatory in nature. Members of the future group of learners are involved in the design process at every stage. This involvement is especially important to overcome the contradiction between the goal of the game as such and the pedagogical goal of the designers.

2016

Although educational games have much promise across domains, their use is not widespread due to a lack of dissemination. This lack, combined with the development costs, has led us to identifying a different approach to educational games to increase adoption of games in education. Based on the reflection of two cases, where each tried in its own way to deal with the challenges of current educational game design, we introduce an approach called sustainable life cycle game design, inspired by the cradle-to-cradle ® model for product manufacturing without waste. This approach emphasizes mixing existing games and educational activities into the design, mixing the game development with education, and developing with the goal of mixing new games in the future.

The educational Ecodesign game SuLi (Sustainable Living) aims at transferring basic knowledge about sustainability to young people onwards in a playful way. When playing the game, the impacts of producing and consuming goods are displayed. The importance of design and production decisions is transferred and the players are confronted with the consequences of their activities in an enjoyable but reasonable manner. This knowledge about the impacts of production and consumption along a products´ life cycle will help preferring environmentally sound products that were produced under fair conditions. The integration of the target group of the game takes place at an early stage of development so that their needs and wishes can be addressed and taken into account. During the testing phase the practical use of the game is also tested and evaluated on this high school. The project is co-funded by the Austrian Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology and the Austrian Ministry of Science and Research.

Proceedings of the Design Society, 2023

Academic institutions are increasingly required to prepare future practitioners to face complex sustainability challenges. The need to foster the development of different skills, attitudes, and multidisciplinary collaboration raised the interest in alternative learning approaches. Game-based learning can be a tool to achieve a variety of desirable learning outcomes, including sustainability and collaborative attitudes change. We present a pilot study investigating the potential of a board game on sustainability risks and opportunities in product development and life cycle, performing a test with different student audiences. The paper discusses our results of the experiment, including a survey following the game, qualitative analysis of students' feedback, and observations during the game sessions. Additionally, we relate insights from students' reflections to CDIO learning objectives. We then illustrate lessons learned and the potential advantages of using the game compared to other teaching approaches and as a complementary tool. Finally, we propose future directions and recommendations for the use of the board game and game-based learning in sustainability education with different student audiences.

Blucher Engineering Proceedings

Gamification has proven to be an efficient teaching strategy to engage students in various topics, including the issues of environmental sustainability. The general objective of this work is to develop a dynamic, interactive and didactic game that can be applied in the classroom, in future classes, as well as in the SENAI CIMATEC institution, as a way of engagement and disseminating the themes of environment and sustainability. For this, scripts were built with the themes to be addressed, scenarios were built using the Vectr and Unity tools to create the game. It is expected to promote the engagement of students and employees in environmental and sustainability themes through the interaction in the game, which replicates CIMATEC scenarios and situations.

International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 2017

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss a novel life cycle approach to education for sustainable development (ESD) where the students become “design thinkers”. Design/methodology/approach A case study on the creation, development and utilisation of educational games by university students is presented. The paper discusses the case study in the context of Kolb’s experiential learning and dynamic matching model, Perry’s stages of intellectual development and Beech and Macintosh’s processual learning model. The data used were from questionnaire feedback from the pupils who played the games and students who designed the games. Further qualitative feedback was collected from local schools involved in playing the games created by the students. Findings Overall, the students responded positively to the assessment and would like to see more of this type of assessment. They enjoyed the creativity involved and the process of developing the games. For the majority of the skill sets measured, most students found that their skills improved slightly. Many students felt that they had learnt a lot about effectively communicating science. The school children involved in playing the student-created games found them accessible with variable degrees of effectiveness as engaging learning tools dependent on the game. Originality/value This paper contributes a new approach to ESD which incorporates learner-centred arrangements within a full life cycle of game creation, delivery, playing and back to creation. The games can be used as a tool for enhancing knowledge and influencing behaviours in school children whilst enhancing ESD capacity in schools. The assessment also helps forge important links between the academic and local communities to enhance sustainable development. Keywords: Environmental sustainability, Education for sustainable development, Pro-environmental behaviour, Educational games, Student-led experiential learning

One aspect of sustainability that often baffles design students is the need to balance concepts such as the triple bottom line (environment, economy and social issue) with the product�s life cycle in their design process. In some cases, this is a result of a lack of understanding of interactions between these aspects since the theoretical part of them is often removed from the student�s daily life experience. One proposal to solve this barrier and allow for a better understanding and integration is the use of board games. Board games have shown to be a useful tool to teach conflict resolution, strategy development, forward and lateral thinking, either through cooperation or competition. Therefore they can be used to teach basic sustainability concepts (i.e. the tragedy of the commons, population bomb) and their participation in the triple bottom line. Games such as Settlers of Catan, Civilization, Carcassonne and CO2 (an example of a board game with environmental aspect as the core concept), are games where winning conditions can be achieved through balancing several aspects. Therefore this can be extrapolated into the development of educative board games that can be used as a tool to explain design students the need for balance the triple bottom line and other sustainability concepts and allow for a better understanding. The aim of this paper is to reflect upon the initial findings of a research project whose objective is to develop board games for use as learning tool in sustainable design courses at undergrad level.dy/3.1

2013 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings

He is the Lead Faculty for MS Sustainability Management Program in SETM. He develops and teaches graduate level Engineering Management and Sustainability classes. His special interests and research include promoting Leadership in Sustainability Practices, energy management and to establish Sustainable strategies for enterprises. He is an active Affiliate Researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, focusing on the energy efficiency and assessment for IT equipment in Data Centers, and continues this work as a Consultant. He is also a member of the San Diego Gas and Electric's Public Advisory Group for 'Workforce Education & Training'. Prof. Ben Radhakrishnan has an MS from State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, M.B.A

2015

This paper introduces and discusses an online game and simulation, Fierce Planet, designed to "prime"tertiary students for urban sustainability themes and scenarios. The framework allows for easy customisation andadaptation through the use of JavaScript modules, similar to NetLogo scripts. Unlike NetLogo, the framework can runin any HTML5-compatible browser, making it more likely to be used and embedded in online materials andcourseware. The paper discusses two adaptations that were trialed with a group of tertiary construction students: asimple tower-strategy styled game, and an interactive simulation based on a curriculum assignment to plan newdevelopments at Melbourne's Fisherman's Bend. Students were given approximately 45 minutes to explore bothadaptations. They were then administered a short questionnaire with a mix of open and closed questions, designed totest the usability of the overall framework as well as the usefulness of the specific model as priming t...

Electronic Journal of e-Learning (EJEL), 2012

This study explored the potential of digital games as learning environments to develop mindsets capable of dealing with complexity in the domain of sustainability. Building sustainable futures requires the ability to deal with the complex dynamics that characterize the world in which we live. As central elements in this system, we must develop the ability of constantly assessing the environment that surrounds us, operating in it and adapting to it through a continuous and iterative individual and interpersonal process of revision of our frames of reference. We must focus on our world as a whole, considering both immediate problems and longterm consequences that decision making processes could generate. Educating for sustainability demands learning approaches and environments that require the development of systems thinking and problem-solving, rather than solely the acquisition of factual knowledge. When designed with complexity in mind, digital games present a high potential to facilitate sustainability learning. Digital games can be modelled as ‘complexified’ systems, engaging players in cognitively demanding tasks requiring problem-solving and decision-making skills to deal with ill-structured problems, unpredictable circumstances, emerging system properties and behaviours, and non-linear development of events. Furthermore, games can require players to collectively engage in the pursuit of common goals, promoting remote interactions across large numbers of players. To understand how games are currently used for “learning for sustainability”, we analysed 20 games. In spite of the potential offered by digital games and concrete examples of good practice, we found that sustainability thematic contextualisation and complex system dynamics are not leveraged as much as could be expected. Hence, there seems to be space for improvements oriented at creating game systems requiring players to address sustainability issues from multiple perspectives through: contextualisation integrating the social, economic and environmental dimensions of sustainability; gameplay dynamics integrating non-linearity, emergence, uncertainty, ill-defined problems and social interactions.