Strategy Hackathon: A Virtual Exchange in Innovation and Collaboration

Wadji Ben Rejeb & David Anderson

In November 2024, we launched a cross-continental virtual hackathon that brought together undergraduate Business Strategy students from Lincoln International Business School (LIBS) and Communication Management students from North-West University (NWU), South Africa. This teaching innovation reimagined how we deliver strategic thinking skills by swapping traditional case studies for real-time collaborative problem-solving.

Working in diverse teams, students tackled a real-world strategic challenge presented by Mosaic SA, a non-profit serving marginalised communities in South Africa. Using a Nonprofit Strategy Canvas, co-developed for this project, students ideated practical solutions and pitched them in front of the NGO’s representative. This fusion of experiential learning, intercultural exchange, and social impact cultivated creativity, empathy, and transferable skills that employers demand.

The hackathon’s structure, short, intensive, and team-based, encouraged students to collaborate across disciplines, navigate cultural differences, and co-create under pressure. It’s a model that scales and adapts well to various educational contexts. Participants gained certificates but most importantly confidence and global competence.

This initiative aligns with LIBS’s strategic vision for challenge-led education and internationalised learning. If you’re interested in running your own hackathon, we are developing a resource pack with templates, session formats, and student-ready materials. We’d love to help you bring virtual hackathon experiences into your classroom, if you need any support please contact us at:

Wajdi Ben Rejeb: wbenrejeb@lincoln.ac.uk

David Anderson: danderson@lincoln.ac.uk

Learning through bite-sized videos: Academic writing skills

Lee McHugh, Mohammad Manesh & David Anderson

We’ve developed a series of 10 short, interactive videos to support academic writing. Each video is designed to provide step by step guidance to introduce students to new skills. Videos are full of infographics, friendly narrative and embedded with “pause now” activities encouraging learners to reflect, practice, and engage more deeply with the material and develop their academic learning.

Designed specifically for new and international students in mind, the videos cover core skills such as paraphrasing, referencing, & plagiarism, in an accessible and engaging format which is easy to embed into digital spaces like Blackboard or Learning@Lincoln. The interactive style and relatable design of the videos break down complex writing concepts into manageable, bite-sized learning moments, which can help support students learning and success rates.

This project was funded by the CoASSH Teaching and Learning Innovation fund, creating a collaboration with a third year design student which provided a valuable experience to enhance their CV and expand their creative portfolio.

This project also supports our broader goal of promoting social mobility across student groups in Lincoln International Business School. By offering accessible, engaging and student-led resources, we’re helping to level the playing field for learners from diverse backgrounds.

Overall, the video project has been a success in combining student employment, skill-building, and inclusive education. It aims to have a positive impact on learners, helping them build confidence and competence in their academic writing.

The videos will be released very soon.

If you’d like to learn more about these resources please contact:

Lee McHugh: lmchugh@lincoln.ac.uk

Mohammad Manesh: mmanesh@lincoln.ac.uk

David Anderson: danderson@lincoln.ac.uk

Educational Escape Rooms: A Playful Route into Deeper Learning

Davina Bird, David Anderson

Educational escape rooms are a great way to get students excited about your subject & engaged in classroom discussions. Through this funded teaching and learning project we have developed an adaptable template to customise your own educational escape room. The template offers a structure for five interlinked puzzles, into which subject content is embedded.

The project is designed for educators who want to use escape rooms for learning, but don’t know where to start. By customising your own escape room you’ll understand how puzzles hang together & can be used as part of your educational toolkit.

Budget was a priority in the design, as a result, all resources – including the locks – are printable, you just need to provide a large and small envelope. However, with a small budget (approx. £25 per box) you can make greater use of materials, giving your escape room a polished finish.

If you’re interested in customising your own educational escape room you can download the step by step Resource Pack, or you can work with us to co-create something more bespoke. We’d love to help you bring escape room experiences into your classroom, if you need any support please contact us at:

Davina Bird: dbird@lincoln.ac.uk

David Anderson: danderson@lincoln.ac.uk

Resource Pack (Download)

Resource Pack – Puzzle Templates, Examples and Locks (002)Download

Playing for Change: Using Card Games to Teach Sustainability and Responsible Management

David Anderson & Davina Bird

At Lincoln International Business School, we’ve been exploring new ways to bring the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) to life. With support from the PRME UK & Ireland Seed Funding competition, we co-developed a suite of four interactive card games designed to make sustainability education both meaningful and memorable.

The goal? To turn complex global challenges into accessible, engaging conversations – where students are not just learning about sustainability but actively playing with it.

We’ve embedded the impactful five (i5) principles—Iterative, Joyful, Meaningful, Active, Social – into the design, making the games adaptable for diverse teaching contexts.

The full Educational Packs are now ready to support colleagues across disciplines. If you’re looking for practical, playful ways to bring PRME values into your teaching, drop us a message—we’d love to share ideas. Games developed include:

  • 17 SDG Memory Game (Pair matching game)
  • Sustainable Development Trumps (Trick taking game, based on Top Trumps)
  • Cards for Sustainability (Party game, based on Cards Against Humanity)
  • Concord (Cooperative deck builder, based on Dominion)
17 SDG Memory Game
Cards for Sustainability

The PRME Educational Packs includes cards, game instructions, and ready-to-use classroom activities. Whether it’s helping students develop awareness of the 17 SDGs through a memory game, debating which PRME-inspired action has the strongest impact, or engaging in strategic cooperation through the deck-building game Concord, each game offers a fresh angle on embedding responsible leadership into the curriculum.

Play them in your own classes, download the Educational Packs below which include free print & play versions of each game and teaching support resources, available below.

We want to help you bring these into your classroom, if you need any support in printing or playing please contact us at:

  • David Anderson: danderson@lincoln.ac.uk
  • Davina Bird: dbird@danderson

Educational Packs (Free Downloadable Resources)

Teaching Support Resources Pack

The teaching support pack provides an overview of each game, instructions for setup and game play, as well as suggested classroom activities. We encourage you to adapt these as required to best suit your student needs.

Teaching Support Resources PackDownload

  1. 17 SDG Memory Game
  • Contents: 17 x SDG Cards, 1 x Setup instructions.
  • Print instructions: print on card for best results, in colour, single sided.
  • Note: you will need to print two copies to play the memory game.
  • See teaching support resources to help integrate classroom discussions.
1_Print2Play_SDGsDownload

2. Sustainable Development Trumps

  • Contents: 34 x Trump Cards, 1 x Setup Instructions.
  • Print instructions: print on card for best results, in colour, single sided.
  • See teaching support resources to help integrate classroom discussions.
2_Print2Play_TopTrumpsDownload

3. Cards for Sustainability

  • Content: 204 x Playing cards, 1 x Setup instructions.
  • Print instructions: print on card for best results, single sided.
  • Note: To play this game you will also need one copy of the 17 SDG Memory game.
  • See teaching support resources for various ways to play and to help integrate classroom discussions.
3_Print2Play_Cards4Sustainability (w Cut Guides)Download

4. Concord

  • Content: 204 x Playing cards, 1 x Rule Booklet.
  • Print instructions: print on card for best results, in colour single sided.
  • See teaching support resources to play and to help integrate classroom discussions.
4_Print2Play_ConcordDownload

Exhibition Odyssey: A Framework for Exhibition Assessments in Business Subjects

Mohammad Manesh, Lee McHugh & David Anderson

The Exhibition Odyssey project made its debut between April 28th and May 2nd, 2025, within the DCB building at Lincoln International Business School (LIBS). Spearheaded by Mohammad Fakhar Manesh (PI), alongside Lee McHugh and David Anderson (Co-PIs), this pioneering initiative introduced live exhibitions as a dynamic alternative to traditional assessment formats in business education.

Drawing inspiration from practices in the arts, the project aimed to transform how assessments are perceived and conducted in business subjects. By reimagining assessments as immersive, collaborative, and multi-sensory experiences, Exhibition Odyssey encouraged students to engage deeply with course content while fostering creativity, collaboration, and communication. The approach sought to reduce the anxiety typically associated with traditional assessments, creating an environment where students could showcase their work confidently and enjoyably.

Key highlights of the project included exhibition-based formats such as interactive poster displays, ambient music, and collaborative group setups. Students were actively involved in shaping the project, particularly in the Innovation Management module, where second-year students provided valuable feedback through surveys. One student shared: “I really enjoyed this type of presentation. It allowed me to confidently present our group findings without stressing or jumbling my words.” Over 54% of students who participated reported positive feedback, with many praising the format for its ability to promote learning and reduce stress.

This project directly addressed concerns raised by NSS scores, making assessments more participatory and meaningful. Notable outcomes included the creation of teaching resources, such as poster templates and assessment design guidelines, along with the establishment of a peer support network to help staff adopt the model. Furthermore, the project supported those managing exhibition-based assessments, ensuring its sustainable implementation across the curriculum.

The Exhibition Odyssey project has already shown a positive impact, with improved module evaluations, enhanced student satisfaction, and growing interest among academic staff in innovative assessment methods. It also promotes essential industry skills such as teamwork, communication, and adaptability, aligning academic practices with real-world expectations.

Students’ reflections underscore the success of the initiative:

  • “I found it so much more relaxing and easier than giving a presentation! Normally I feel too stressed about presenting to really listen to the other presentations but using this way I was able to listen to everyone else’s ideas and share my own stress free and I learnt much more than I normally would.”
  • “It was so much more relaxing and easier than giving a presentation.”
  • “I was able to listen to everyone else’s ideas and share my own stress-free.”
  • “It helped us to collaborate with the other groups.”

In sum, the Exhibition Odyssey sets a new standard for experiential learning and student-centred pedagogy in business education, with clear potential for broader institutional impact. If you would like to have a conversation with the team, please feel free to get in touch, mfakharmanesh@lincoln.ac.uk.

Subject Revision Card Games

Davina Bird & David Anderson

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.

DICE Cafe Social Event

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.

Dissertation Project: Body Swaps

David Anderson & Tom Baldry

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.

Dissertation Project: Can euro-style board games develop 21st Century employability skills & close the graduate skills gap?

David Anderson & Amber Wales

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.

The Board Games Session

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.

Project Team: Davina Bird and David Anderson