“Can you escape the job search rut?”: Gamification in Pre-Work Term Cooperative Education Courses

Event Type:
Sub-event of 12th Annual University of Toronto Teaching and Learning Symposium
Date/Time
Date not set
Timeslot
CONCURRENT SESSION 2: Tue May 01, 2018 at 6:15 PM to Wed May 02, 2018 at 7:15 PM
Stream
Interactive Workshop
Description
Presenter: Danielle Moed, Co-op Coordinator, Student Development, Faculty of Arts & Science Co-op Learners powerfully activate their hippocampus when exposed to the right amount of attention, generation, emotion and spacing, which in turn builds deeper, stronger neural connections, allowing students to create long term memories (Davachi, Kiefer, Rock & Rock, 2010). Generating these types of memories is vastly important to the area of cooperative education, where students are not only learning skills required to acquire a work term, but ultimately are building life skills. But how can we achieve this in a cooperative education course? One method is gamification. Gamified learning experiences have been shown to improve motivation and increase engagement by maximizing attention, encouraging generation and creating positive emotion-arousing events (Manson, 2017; Davachi, Kiefer, Rock & Rock, 2010). One form of gamified learning is classroom-style “escape rooms”. While escape rooms are relatively new to educational environments, due to their intrinsic nature, they are excellent vessels for exploring the concepts of key skills not only required by employers in the workplace, but also for academic success overall (Pan, Henry, & Neustaedter, 2017). In the Arts & Science Co-op Department at UTSC, COPD03 course, gamification was implemented in the form of an in-class “escape room”, where students engaged in a trial session of game-based course related learning and reflected on their learning experience. Participants in this session will have the opportunity to participate in a job search “escape room” to experience the gamified learning approach first-hand, followed by a debrief, a discussion of the methodology and approach, as well as, its potential extension to other program areas. Note: To fully engage in the experience, attendees should considering bringing a laptop, tablet or other digital device to the session. References: Davachi, L., Kiefer, T., Rock, D., & Rock, L. (2010). Learning that lasts through AGES. NeuroLeadership Journal, 3:53–63 Manson, S.K. (2017). Using Game Mechanics to Increase Graduate Student Engagement with Library Resources. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation), Texas Wesleyan University, Fort Worth, TX. Pan, R., Henry, L., & Neustaedter, C. (2017). Collaboration, Awareness, and Communication in Real-Life Escape rooms. DIS 2017, Edinburgh, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3064663.3064767
 Web-Conferencing Information
Location (details)

Room 300

Date/Time
Date not set
Description
Presenter: Danielle Moed, Co-op Coordinator, Student Development, Faculty of Arts & Science Co-op Learners powerfully activate their hippocampus when exposed to the right amount of attention, generation, emotion and spacing, which in turn builds deeper, stronger neural connections, allowing students to create long term memories (Davachi, Kiefer, Rock & Rock, 2010). Generating these types of memories is vastly important to the area of cooperative education, where students are not only learning skills required to acquire a work term, but ultimately are building life skills. But how can we achieve this in a cooperative education course? One method is gamification. Gamified learning experiences have been shown to improve motivation and increase engagement by maximizing attention, encouraging generation and creating positive emotion-arousing events (Manson, 2017; Davachi, Kiefer, Rock & Rock, 2010). One form of gamified learning is classroom-style “escape rooms”. While escape rooms are relatively new to educational environments, due to their intrinsic nature, they are excellent vessels for exploring the concepts of key skills not only required by employers in the workplace, but also for academic success overall (Pan, Henry, & Neustaedter, 2017). In the Arts & Science Co-op Department at UTSC, COPD03 course, gamification was implemented in the form of an in-class “escape room”, where students engaged in a trial session of game-based course related learning and reflected on their learning experience. Participants in this session will have the opportunity to participate in a job search “escape room” to experience the gamified learning approach first-hand, followed by a debrief, a discussion of the methodology and approach, as well as, its potential extension to other program areas. Note: To fully engage in the experience, attendees should considering bringing a laptop, tablet or other digital device to the session. References: Davachi, L., Kiefer, T., Rock, D., & Rock, L. (2010). Learning that lasts through AGES. NeuroLeadership Journal, 3:53–63 Manson, S.K. (2017). Using Game Mechanics to Increase Graduate Student Engagement with Library Resources. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation), Texas Wesleyan University, Fort Worth, TX. Pan, R., Henry, L., & Neustaedter, C. (2017). Collaboration, Awareness, and Communication in Real-Life Escape rooms. DIS 2017, Edinburgh, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3064663.3064767