Spice up your teaching!

A practical cookbook of games you can integrate into your teaching practice by the Educational Game Group (EGG) at the University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Have you ever thought of using games to stimulate learning?

Spice up your teaching!

Jason VandenBerghe, (Playing Hard, 2018)

" [Gaming is] the theatre of the mind. […] It’s the lens through which we understand how the world works without having to literally go to [live it] ourselves. It’s a way for people to be warned and to learn about what the world contains to better prepare themselves for what’s happening in their real life."

Game-based learning is developing or using games which help us learn. These games can be very simple or very elaborate. Many can be integrated when remote teaching, and could help students motivation and engagement with the course material. We have gathered here a few ideas for you to use.

Game-based learning

Acknow- ledgments

Easter eggs

Cooperative games

Pervasive games

Interactive stories

Case studies

Speedruns

Trivia and quizzes

Escape games

Crossword puzzles

Choose which type of game you would like to know more about

Index

Pervasive games are scenario-based activities that blur the line between reality and fiction. They usually integrate various riddles or puzzles using different media to create a fictitious but realistic storyline. The scenario evolves according to the discoveries and decisions of the participants. Clues lead to a series of puzzles to solve over the course of the game. Pervasive games are very effective ways of staging course material and problem solving, especially over long periods of time.

Pervasive games

or alternate reality games

Method of delivery

Distance or face-to-face learning

Replayability

None; once played, the game is over

Duration

Days, weeks or even a whole semester

Number of players

Players can work alone or in groups

or alternate reality games

Pervasive games

Creating in-game material

Clues and other activities

Bulding your scenario

Platforms such as Canvas or Piktochart can be used to create templates or fake documents such a newspaper.

Prepare hints for students who are stuck. Be as realistic as possible (provide real numbers to call, real emails and convincing answers, etc.). You can can integrate other type of activities such as puzzles, crosswords, etc.

This is the most challenging and time consuming part. Introduce participants to the story gradually. Set clear expectations. New developments and clues should be regularly introduced to keep students engaged.

or alternate reality games

Pervasive games

Looking for inspiration? Here are a few examples.

or alternate reality games

Pervasive games

Students solve crossword puzzles constructed by their professor, which means that clues can be tailored to come directly from course content. This activity works well for learning a new vocabulary – be it the vocabulary of a second language or the specialized vocabulary associated with a new discipline (e.g. anatomy). Crossword puzzles encourage students to slow down and think about what they have been learning and to practice recalling course content as they link clues with words. Having to fit each word into the right number of boxes helps with spelling of new terminology, an ongoing challenge for students. Feedback is immediate and puzzle completion provides low-stakes opportunities to fail and to learn from mistakes.

Crossword puzzles

Online activity to support learning of course content

Method of delivery

Distance learning

Replayability

Students can redo puzzles to review content interactively when preparing for exams

Duration

15 to 30min

Number of players

Single player, but students could work in small groups

Crossword puzzles

You can be creative!

Crosswords don't need to be solely about learning vocabulary; they can also be about understanding and solving simple applied questions... ... or even Math crosswords!

Crossword puzzles

01

Why do all the work?

Let your students create crosswords! Building a crossword on a particular subject can become an individual or group assignment which engages students with the course material, whilst giving them the agency to create a learning tool.

Crossword puzzles

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Online resources to create crosswords

Crossword puzzles

Escape games are activities in which participants, placed in a fictional environment, must search for and use a series of clues to solve puzzles and riddles in order to achieve a specific objective. Escape games are a great way to foster student engagement. They are a form of experiential learning in which participants can progress in a safe space. They also encourage research, understanding and use of various materials, tools or knowledge.

Escapte games

Or breakout rooms

Method of delivery

Distance or face-to-face learning

Replayability

None

Duration

30min to 3hours

Number of players

Can be both cooperative and individual

or breakout rooms

Escape games

... But the task can be sizable

Creating a puzzle or riddle where the course content or material must be examined (not just browsed) is challenging. Identifying clear and specific learning outcomes is critical. Creating a consistent scenario is a complex task, especially without proper training. The storyline has to be both plausible and aligned with the course material. It is useful to design a general vision of the scenario at the beginning. Then, each step can be created in detail.

The sky is the limit! ...

Many media are available to adapt escape games to the online environment: websites, downloadable files, videos, etc. There is virtually no limit to what can be used online, or within your own course material, to create escape game material.

or breakout rooms

Escape games

or breakout rooms

Tips and tricks

Prior to and during the game

1. It is important to find a way to supervise students while they are going through the activity (by you if the scenario allows it, or by a colleague).
2. It is useful to prepare clues in case participants get stuck during the activity.
3. It is critical to test the puzzles and riddles because the mind of the creator does not necessarily work like the minds of the participants.

Escape games

Looking for inspiration?

Here are a few example to whet your appetite! (some are only available in French)

or breakout rooms

Escape games

Tutorials and online resources

There are multiple online platforms for creating escape games. Here we present a few: Breakout EDU ($) Goolgle forms (free) Genial.ly (some free)

Creating Digital Breakout EDU Locks with Genial.ly

Creating Digital Breakout EDU Locks with Google Forms

Free open source tutorial By Jen Giffen

Online platform specialized for creating escape game ($)

or breakout rooms

Escape games

Trivia and quizzes are champions of recall but they can also be much more! Recalling information is one of the best ways to memorize new information and good quizzing can also identify gaps in understanding or areas of weakness in one's knowledge. They are a great metacognitive tool for our students and so much fun!

Trivia and quizzes

A timeless learning tool

Method of delivery

Distance or face-to-face learning

Replayability

No, but they can become study tools and reused as such.

Duration

5min to an hour

Number of players

Can be played Individually or in groups, depending on game

Trivia and quizzes

Making games challenging!

Integrating games in your teaching

Creating games

Trivia games and quizzes do not have to be solely based on low-level questions on Bloom’s taxonomy, but can also incorporate application of knowledge, transfer, problem solving and analytical questions.

Motivate play by telling your students that some of the questions will be on the exam. Students can play each other’s games, and, with an adjudicator present, scores can be tallied for the winners, a bit like a tournament. Use games as icebreakers!

Building question sets and flip cards in Quizlet or other platforms can easily become a question bank that builds over the years. Creating a trivia game or participating in building questions for a trivia game could be given as an assignment to students.

Practical tips and tricks

Trivia and quizzes

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Multiple platforms are available to create games

Trivia and quizzes

Rewarding effort

Each student must register to play the game (free) and must achieve a certain number of points in the game in order to obtain participation points for their final grade.

Personalizing learning

Students can track their progress over time using a leaderboard and stats for each subject in the course, over different levels of difficulty. This supports metacognition throughout the semester.

Creating BioLingo

The game was created to help students practice and recall new knowledge in a novel manner. Points in the game are tied to points in their final grade and some questions were reused in exams.

Example of a online game created by Dr. Beaulieu and Dr. Petit-Turcotte

Trivia and quizzes

Cooperative games require two or more players to work together. In well-designed co-operative games, players need to co-ordinate their choices and actions to maximize their ability to play the game well. Depending on the game, this can require—and offer opportunities to practice—skills such as communication, negotiation, strategic decision-making, resource optimization, or spatiotemporal awareness.

Cooperative games

Method of delivery

Distance or face-to-face learning

Replayability

Yes, can be replayed whenever new groups are formed

Duration

20 to 90min

Number of players

Multiple players Structured in groups

Cooperative games

01

Whole universes of spontaneous cooperative play.

Think of multiplayer video games!

Cooperative games can be well-suited to situations where group work is required. Group work is one of those things that students are often asked to do, but they haven’t necessarily been formally taught how to do it (in a professional setting). While cooperative games do not replace effective training in how to work well in groups (unless the game is designed specifically to do so), they can be used to let groups practice working together as groups with reduced consequences for failure (i.e. no impact on course grade for poor performance). Photo from wikipedia

Cooperative games

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes

Snipperclips

Overcooked

Here are a few examples of ready made online cooperative games

They can be fun icebreakers!

Cooperative games

Here are a few examples of boardgames that are cooperative

Escape games and theatre games can also be cooperative games

Cooperative games

Find more information here

Play your gamemaster role well

There is something in it for everyone

Plan what you want students to learn

It is a good idea to monitor teams playing cooperative games to provide feedback on group interactions and to ensure that things run smoothly (e.g. watch for personality clashes). After a cooperative gaming session, debrief with groups to help them attend to the skills that the game had them practice.

People who are averse to competition may respond well to cooperative games. Keep in mind that some games are both cooperative and competitive (e.g. team vs. team). Also, cooperative games can still be intense if they have time limits or impose a high attentional load.

When using cooperative games, take time to identify the skill(s) that you would like the group to be able to practice and then search for a game that highlights the use of that skill. To do this, focus on the game’s mechanics rather than its theme. Some games are suitable for remote teaching, some are not.

Creating your own game or purposely using ready-made games

Cooperative games

In interactive stories, participants follow a scenario and decide how it evolves. They are a virtual adaptation of "Choose Your Own Adventure" books and allow the creation of an interactive case study. At different stages of the scenario, a list of choices is presented to the participants who have to make a decision based on the facts of the story and the material provided. The choices made have direct consequences on the course of the story and participants cannot usually reverse their decision.

Interactive stories

or branching scenarios

or branching scenarios

Method of delivery

Distance or face-to-face learning

Replayability

Yes, by exploring different branches of the scenario

Duration

15min to 3 hours

Number of players

Can play individually or in small groups

Interactive stories

What could this look like?

or branching scenarios

The interactive stories were built in H5P, a free online platform where you can create interactive presentations and integrate the created content directly into your Learning Management System.

Here are two examples of interactive stories, created for a course in environmental law at the University of Ottawa in Ontario, Canada. The University of Ottawa is a bilingual university (French/English), and both of these interactive stories are in French.

Interactive stories

It is also possible to create interactive stories using Power Point

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or branching scenarios

Interactive stories

Delivering the story and managing students

First step: storyboarding!

Students can go through the scenario alone or in small groups. The story can also be used as a presentation in class or online in small groups (e.g. breakout sessions in Zoom), in which case choices can be made collectively. A group approach can help to build different perspectives on the same topic. Branching scenarios allow students to progress at their own pace and make their own choices. The professor should assist them as they move along the story, be available to answer questions, and discuss the choices made.

Preparing the scenario and its different branches beforehand makes the creation process easier. Linking the scenario branches to the intended learning outcomes can help create the options. Sometimes there can be the illusion of a choice. Some branches can be looped back to the main storyline. Try to keep a limited number of main storylines (3 to 5), as well as a limited number of endings (3 to 5), to keep the creation and content manageable.

or branching scenarios

Interactive stories

01

For the enthusiast

Have we truly whet your appetite for interactive stories so that you're ready to fully commit to creating complex stories? There is a whole community out there that shares your enthusiasm! You can join them and start coding in Twine. There is a plethora of tutorials and other resources available for Twine users, but it is a bit more complex as it uses various forms of coding. For hard core storymakers only!

or branching scenarios

Interactive stories

Clicker case studies focus on using lectures to engage students in stories of discovery and problem solving. Combining stories containing scientific messages with “Class Response Systems” or “Clickers” can be an exciting way to engage students in “live” face-to-face or "online” sessions.

Clicker case studies

Method of delivery

Distance or face-to-face learning

Replayability

No, but students can use it as a studying tool

Duration

30 to 90min, possible to string one or more case studies over the term

Number of players

Multiple players, very large clasrooms, individually or in groups

Clicker case studies

01

A simple and powerful tool for actively engaging students with course content

Clicker case studies are closer to experiential learning than lecturing. Students are presented with a case scenario with a "mission" and must follow prompts, analyze data, apply and acquire new knowledge, make sense of the knowledge, draw conclusions, and reflect on meaning in a manner that is contextual rather than theoretical. This form of inquiry-based learning requires that everyone is following the same case study in real time, and the instructor acts more as a mentor to students with direct, interactive feedback on student progress.

Clicker case studies

Tips and tricks

Get inspiration from real stories (crime stories, medical stories, news articles, published scientific papers). Ask various types of questions in which students must make informed decisions, offer opinions or conclusions based on observations. Focus on learning outcomes. Incorporate "think-pair-share" when tasking students to perform the activities.

Remote teaching

All the above and an online conferencing system (MS Teams, Zoom or other)

Teaching face to face

What you will need is simple

1. Powerpoint or similar
2. A researched story
3. A polling system (LectureTools, Mentimeter, Socrative, MS Forms, etc.)

Clicker case studies

Clicker case studies

Giving the students agency

Polling the students

Presenting the clicker case study

Asking students where they would like to start gives them agency. The instructor can then move to the related portion of the case, and once done, ask the class what the next destination will be. This way, each section of the case can be discussed, but not necessarily in the “order” originally chosen by the professor.

Student answers can then be shared with the rest of the class (anonymously) and can typically be used to elicit discussions and debates, allowing the professor to correct misconceptions and customize instruction. You can even poll students to know “which” part of the case they would like to explore first.

Presenting slides (F2F or online), the instructor introduces the case and provides the information that students will need to consider. The instructor may also use slides to “lecture” and task students to answers questions using a polling app (i.e. interpret data, make decisions, offer opinions, etc.).

Clicker case studies

The Case of the Druid Dracula

Cross-Dressing or Crossing-Over?

Bloodline: a human genetic case

Looking for inspiration?

Here are a few examples of clicker case studies from the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science (NCCSTS) used in Dr. Colin Montpetit's introductory class to genetics.

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FoxP2 and Speech

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Clicker case studies

Tutorials and online resources

There are several online tutorials for creating or using clicker case studies or simply using "clicker" questions. Here are few freely avaible resources to get started.

Many course-based learning activities encourage reflection and reward quality, but once students move into to the workforce, they are often expected to work quickly too! Having to meet tight deadlines or quotas can come as a shock since courses don’t typically emphasize the need for speed. Activities such as a speedrun or time attack – where the main goal is to complete an activity quickly – encourage students to learn to work efficiently, prioritize certain elements, and improve their time management skills. Individuals work against the clock, but adding a competitive element can motivate students.

Speedruns

or time attacks

or time attacks

Speedruns

Method of delivery

Distance or face-to-face learning

Replayability

Yes, different activities can be implemented over the course of a semester by using leaderboards.

Duration

5 to 10min

Number of players

Multiple players. playing individually

Published by Lynne Bowker

Tutorial

or time attacks

How to incorporate speedruns into your class

Examples

• A timed quiz to test reading comprehension
• Summarizing a reading or video in 250 words in 5 minutes
• Providing five key words to describe a given reading or video
• Translating a text on a short deadline

Speedruns

or time attacks

Speedruns

Keep it low stakes!

See the progress!

Keep it short and practice often!

Students prefer this activity when it is not graded (or counts only minimally towards a grade). If doing this in class, it’s a great warm-up activity at the start of class.

Do the very same speedrun activity at the beginning and end of the course; after a semester of regular speedruns, students will hopefully see an improvement in their time.

Keep individual speedrun activities short (i.e., 5-10 minutes), but conduct them regularly (e.g. one per class, or one every other class) to develop the habit of working quickly.

or time attacks

Speedruns

Organize students

Organize activity

Management

Logistics

To encourage friendly competition, create a leaderboard using Google Sheets where you can record times (or implement an honour system where students can record their own times). When multiple speedrun activities take place during a course, cumulative times can be recorded on a leaderboard in order to crown an overall speed champion at the end of the course.

You can set up the activity using the “quiz” feature within most Learning Management Systems, even if the activity is not a “quiz” per se. The LMS records how long students spend on the activity, and it may be able to auto-correct and give feedback.

In video games, comic books, and movies, an Easter egg refers to a hidden message, image or feature. The original Easter eggs were coded into the game or movie. Gradually, however, the concept was loosened so that an Easter egg could appear in the content itself (e.g. a “hidden Mickey” in a Disney movie), or it could be offered as a sort of bonus for viewers (e.g. deleted scenes). As part of this wider definition, you could even consider an Easter egg to be a sort of fun prank (e.g. a harmless bait and switch). For instance, you can embed a link in a document that at first reading appears to be “serious” course content, but when clicked, it leads to something fun, such as a cartoon. Hunting for the Easter egg can be an activity to motivate students to explore and engage with the course site or content.

Easter eggs

Easter eggs

Method of delivery

Distance or face-to-face learning

Replayability

Yes, different activities can be implemented over the course of a semester

Duration

3 to 5min

Number of players

Multiple players, mostly playing individually

Easter eggs

Fun but relevant

Don't overdo it!

The Easter egg can still be relevant to the course content, but it just deals with the “lighter side” of the subject, so the link could lead to a cartoon, a joke, a parody site, or even just a fun popularized explanation of a concept, etc. The Learning Management System (e.g. Brightspace, Canvas) of your institution can possibly be used to incorporate an Easter egg into the class content.

Anticipation is half the fun, so one Easter egg per week or module is enough. Turn it into a friendly competition (i.e., Easter egg hunt) with a small prize for the winner (e.g. the first one to find the Easter egg gets to skip the discussion question for the week, or gets a participation point). Incorporate a popular internet meme (e.g. rick-rolling!).

Tips and tricks

Easter Eggs

Examples

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Easter eggs

Resources

Here are a few ideas and interesting resources.

Specialist, Educational Development and Digital LearningUniversity of Ottawa

Assistant professor Département de dramaturgie  Université d’Ottawa

David MacDonald

Associate Professor Dept. of Cellular and Molecular Medicine University of Ottawa

Jackie Carnegie

Steven Ousko

Digital Literacy Librarian University of Ottawa

Mish Boutet

Assistant professorFaculty of Science University of Ottawa

Colin Montpetit

Assistant Professor Civil Law Section University of Ottawa

Thomas Burelli

Full Professor School of Translation and Interpretation and School of Information Studies University of Ottawa

Lynne Bowker

Ph.D. candidate and Part-time profFaculty of Law University of Ottawa

Alexandre Lillo

Assistant professorFaculty of ScienceUniversity of Ottawa

Elaine Beaulieu

Editors and contributors

Aknowledgments

The Educational Games Group (EGG) is a community of practice dedicated to game-based learning at the University of Ottawa. Created in September 2019, it brings together a group of about 15 individuals that use game-based strategies in wide range of teaching or training activities. It includes professors from different departments and faculties (Law, Biology, Medicine, Arts, etc.), support staff from various services (Library, Teaching and Learning Support Service, Academic Writing Help Centre, Health Promotion, etc.) and students from different disciplines. Based on the strong belief that games can transform higher education and that this revolution will be fostered by a collective approach, The EGG is a forum to share experiences, generate new ideas and create interdisciplinary or cross-faculty collaborations.

The Educational Games Group (EGG) University of Ottawa

English

Français

More details in the published version!