In January we received funding to produce resuable teaching resources to support subject revision. Throughout the term we’ve worked with academics across Business School subjects to design packs of 50 cards for use in the classroom.
The aim of this project was to develop a form of revision which was engaging and intellectually stimulating which could be easily adapted for any subject. We were inspired by euro games where playing the game is just as much fun as winning & wanted to build this into our approach.
We have produced 9 subject packs for use on modules next academic year:
Economics
Acocuntancy
Competition and Regulation
Research Methods
Innovation
Philosophy of Management
Employability
Human Resource Management
Principles of Responsible Management (PRME)
The packs can be used independently, as flash cards, a concept sort, memory game, mix and match concept with definition, or used along side an existing game such as Just One. Student can also print & play packs so they can revise independently away from the classroom.
If you’re interested in using these packs or would like to design one of your own we’re happy to support you, contact us at dbird@lincoln.ac.uk or danderson@lincoln.ac.uk.
The DICE Cafe hosted a social event for the Department of Management. Students from different year groups across the Department came together to chillout for a couple of hours. This was a great opportunity for academics to mingle with students without the pressure of delivering a module.
We brought along a some games, Rhino Hero, Pandemic: Hot Zone and Cobra Paw, broke out the VR headsets for a bout of Zombie killing.
In February we supported Tom Baldry to collaborate with BodySwaps, a VR company specialising in soft skill training, as part of his undergraduate dissertation exploring the use of Virtual Reality experiences to develop management and leadership skills.
For his data collection Tom ran a BodySwaps session for our second year Business and Management students studying the Innovation, Creativity and Change module. Students completed the 20-minute soft skills BodySwaps module ‘Mananging Conflict’ & had the opportunity to try out the experience in virtual reality.
This was a great experience for all involved. The session helped to add an Industry 4.0 element to the module, offered students training in digital soft skills training, enabled Tom to collect data about student experiences of VR software, and provided BodySwaps with user feedback.
Tom’s involvement in the module also showed the second year students what can be done through a dissertation project and hopefully will have inspired next years students to develop similar projects.
This term we supported Amber Wales to collect data for her undergraduate dissertation “Using euro-style board games to build 21st Century employability skills & close the graduate skills gap”.
Amber ran a session with our students to play the co-operative board game Pandemic. In this game players need to work collaboratively to prevent the spread of multiple diseases across the globe. There are multiple ways of losing the game and only one way to win – find the cure for each of the diseases. To win requires teams to plan ahead, communicate clearly with each other and a bit of luck.
Students really enjoyed the challenge of playing Pandemic and by theend of the session were invested in trying to beat the game. Students evaluated themselves against the World Economic Forum 21st Century SKills and highlighted that they most used active learning, complex problem solving, critical thinking & analyis, and leaderhsip & social influence whilst playing the game.
What this experience highlighted was that euro-style board games are not common place, only one student had heard of Pandemic and few had heard of other euro games, such as Catan, Herd Mentality, or Ticket to Ride. These kind of games are still novel to students and present opportuinties for skills development which are fun and engaging. With such a wide variety of mechanics games provide the opportunity for students to develop a wide range of softskills.
For this session we pulled some games out of the DICE Cafe cupboard with the aim to think about which might work in the classroom. I have some reservations about using games for teaching, whilst they are fun to play I worry they wont be seen as also educational. We’ve pulled out some of the classic euro-games: Catan, Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride, Pandemic and Just One. On the other side of the room our regular group of students are settling in to tackle The Balthazar Stone, a hybrid escape room in a chest. We decide to play Ticket to Ride because despite regularly playing games one us hasn’t played this yet.
As we play Ticket to Ride we discuss whether its possible to bring any of these games into the classroom. Our first concern was around the time it takes to play them, although with euro games you can change the win condition to shorten the game, for example playing with fewer trains in Ticket to Ride or with fewer tiles in Carcassonne. So we agreed that logistically at least games could be explained, played and packed away within a 50 minute class. We were more stumped on how to justify the educational value of Catan or Pandemic to economics and management students. This got us thinking about which games might be easy to adapt to use them in ways which were directly relevant to our curriculum.
The students have gone quiet, it looks like they’re struggling to unlock the next padlock in the chest. We go over to find out what they’re stuck on. They are misinterpreting the symbols on the mirror and can’t work out how they link to the map they have found, we draw their attention to the symbols and encourage them to think of different ways of looking at them. In this way they still own the problem solving, we’re just redirecting their attention. Once they work it out we leave them to work out the next puzzles.
After a while we’ve pretty much forgotten that we’re playing Ticket to Ride, instead we’ve got caught up in a conversation about Just One, because it’s a card based game it lends itself well to creating subject specific cards and using them as a revision pack for students. In this way we could use the mechanics of Just One and custom decks of cards to make learning about a subject fun and interactive. This idea, at least in principle, could be applied to any subject, has potential for including students in the design of the cards and can be done at low cost with minimal effort.
Following this session we drafted a Teaching and Learning innovation application to develop packs of revision cards using existing games, we’ve since piloted an educational version of Just One, first by working with the final year Philosophy of Management students to create the cards using Kahoot and then playing the game with them towards the end of term to revise the course material. They enjoyed the challenge of describing key words from the course and then completing a concept sort with all of the cards to identify where they had gaps in their knowledge.
We’re now looking to work with module leaders in other subjects to help them create student produced revision packs for use in the classroom.
Our application in a nutshell
Developing subject revision card games to promote student learning and engagement
To customise euro-style games to support subject revision. The outcome of this project is the production of high quality reusable teaching resources for use in subjects across the Business School which promote fun ways to enhance student learning. Resources will be developed in collaboration with students and teaching staff, who will be supported to pilot and evaluate the impact on their modules.
“Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform that makes it easy to create, share and play learning games or trivia quizzes in minutes”
(Kahoot, 2023)
It is used in classrooms, offices and at home, you can find out more about Kahoot! here.
The first session brought together academics who were interested in using Kahoot! but had mixed experiences of it. Some had used it frequently, but only with small classes and limited features, whilst others had never used it in the classroom.
The Business School had purchased a single licence and in this session we started to explore what it could do. It is very intuitive, if you don’t know where to start there is a wealth of existing Kahoots to use or draw inspiration from, you can also pick from a range of templates to get you started. There is a nice range of question styles designed to test knowledge or collect opinions, it’s supported by AI too and can generate questions if you provide a topic. A useful tool if you’re overwhelmed with options or don’t have a clear direction at the start. Linked to your question you can also add media (image, sound, video), these are simple and straightforward to add, and help to tailor your Kahoot!
After exploring we discussed different ways we have or might want to use Kahoot! with students. The multiple choice style of questions works well as a knowledge checker in the classroom, suggestions included using it to check if students knew details from the handbook (such as the assessment deadline), and the podium feature is a good way to get students competitive about knowing a subject through short quizzes. One thing we knew was we wanted to use it in the new Department wide Personal Tutoring events, but at this stage we weren’t sure how.
The outcome of this meeting was that we all agreed we liked Kahoot! and there was potential for further use. Together we applied for four additional subscriptions from the College Teaching and Learning Innovation fund. A few weeks later we received the news that our application had been successful.
Our application in a nutshell
Using Kahoot to improve student engagement: A trial targeting personal tutoring & professional development
A pilot of Kahoot software in School-wide initiatives including Personal Tutoring, the Professional Development module and several smaller scale modules. Could Kahoot have a positive impact on student engagement and should it be considered for wider use across the School?
Project Team: David Anderson, Pippa Denny-Gelder, Stephanie Schiaffonati, Alison Raby and Catriona Hyde.
If you are interested in using Kahoot! or want to find out more details about our project please contact David Anderson at danderson@lincoln.ac.uk.
DICE Cafe: Supporting Digital and Interactive Classroom Experiences
The DICE Cafe is an innovation hub for academics to work with students to identify, create and trial Digital and Interactive Classroom Experiences.
The aim of this initiative is to share practical teaching and learning practices amongst colleagues, and provide support where necessary. Typically sessions focus on how to use existing resources available in the Business School, such as virtual reality, board games, business simulations and lego. As well as supporting academics to put forward bids to pilot new projects, such as Kahoot!, customising games and business simulation competitions.
In the first two months of it’s existence the DICE Cafe has met weekly with new projects emerging at each event. It has attracted three UG dissertation students who are framing their research around the use of board games and VR in learning. Activities (such as lego and Kahoot) from the DICE Cafe have been brought into classrooms and used in school wide personal tutoring events.
At the last lecture I ran students used Kahoot to help me adapt a board game which they will use to revise the module in 4 weeks time, this has also inadvertently provided the basis for a bid to PRME for developing an innovative teaching and learning pedagogy.
People have now started to approach me for support to use the new teaching resources and I’m working with a several teams to help provide this support. If you’re interested in using this kind of approach in your teaching contact David Anderson at danderson@lincoln.ac.uk.
The purpose of this blog is to capture activity associated with the DICE Cafe and to support others on their journey to use more digital and interactive classroom experiences.
