Let the Games Begin!

This week, we’re pleased to post news from Chris Luchs, Associate Dean of Career & Technical Education:

While the world gets ready for the XXX Olympics Games in London, CCCS is also embarking on its own challenge with games. On May 9th, Dr. McCallin announced the funding of fifteen Immersive and Game-Based Learning Faculty Challenge grants. So fifteen teams of dedicated educators will begin the development of games based learning projects on July 1, 2012.

So, what is games based learning? It is simply the application of gaming principles and practices to education to increase student engagement, retention and performance.
Many games require players to improve their literacy skills to complete assignments and questions as well as to utilize math skills to optimize player performance in game. Games also introduce players to probability and critical thinking as they select what attributes will improve their character and identify and plan strategies for overcoming obstacles and in certain cases defeating the villain.

One of the most powerful attribute of games is the idea of die and do over. This concept refers to the fact that failure is a common experience in most games. However, these failures allow the player to learn and experiment. Players are allowed repeated low cost attempts at defeating the monster. Many popular games foster a fail fast environment that allows players to engage in rapid prototyping and implementation of strategies and tactics until they are successful.

Would you like to learn more about this type of learning environment? It is expected that there will be another round of Immersive and Games-based Learning Faculty Challenge grants announced in the fall semester. You could start by adding some interesting books to your summer reading list. Some of the popular authors of games based learning are Clark Aldrich (Learning by Doing), Jane McGonigal (Reality is Broken), Henry Jenkins (Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture), James Gee (What Video Games have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy) and Lee Sheldon (The Multiplayer Classroom).

Or if you prefer to learn more about game based learning as part of a course, please sign up for the Games-based Learning MOOC, which was funded as part of the Faculty Challenge Grant. This massively open online course (MOOC) is open to all CCCS faculty, instructors and staff and is free of charge. To find out more, please go here. http://gamesmooc.wordpress.com/

Immersive Learning Faculty Challenge Grant

More news from our Academic Team:

Are you using scenario based learning or games in your classes? Do you have ideas to create educational games that support student success in your classes but haven’t had the time to really develop something? Now is the time to advertise and expand on what you are already doing or to collaborate with peers at CCCOnline and in the CCCS system to create something that will engage students in immersive activities. We encourage you to reach out not only within CCCOnline, but across disciplines and across institutions to develop these “lighthouse programs.” For example, the history instructors from multiple institutions teaching Colorado history might collaborate to create a pioneer settlement game, or history, geography, and political science instructors might get together to create a geography activity that would meet competencies in all three areas.

Karen Kaemmerling, Associate Dean of Social Sciences, is the CCCOnline representative on the Immersive Learning Advisory Group; this group created the request for proposals to all faculty and staff in the CCCS system to address the growing interest and use of game-based and immersive learning in our classes. The Faculty Challenge Grant program expects the submissions to identify a need, focus on improving student success and engagement, and provide sustainable, collaborative solutions. The activities created as part of the grants will be available to all faculty and staff in the CCCS system under the Creative Commons attribution license.

Please see the Request for Proposals and related documents at this page: http://cccs.edu/EdServices/Educators.html

Be creative, have fun, and please contact Karen Kaemmerling at Karen.kaemmerling@cccs.edu with questions.