Game On: Boosting Teamworking Skills Through Playful Learning
Lead Author: Abhi Jones
Additional authors: Emma Darbyshire, Ailsa Dollard, Emma Gillaspy
Timetable: ,
Description:
Today’s higher education landscape is increasingly complex, with pressures on curriculum delivery, student disengagement, limited interprofessional collaboration, and the need for authentic, real-world skills-based assessment. Serious games can alleviate these challenges. Medicine has historically shied away from playful pedagogy however we turn that notion on its head with our ‘Games Night for Interprofessional Skills’ session, using serious games to demonstrate dynamic concepts, better engage students, and develop essential skills for future clinicians. The development of teamworking skills is essential in all sectors and learning from this case study has widespread application.
Serious games can demonstrate complex and dynamic concepts in short bursts of interactive learning. Effective interprofessional teamworking has a myriad of benefits across all workplaces; in healthcare functional teams improve patient care. This reinforces the importance of students developing and honing teamworking skills early.
Four games were created; each linked to different interprofessional education (IPE) competencies and themes of dynamic teamworking identified by Battle & Lockeman (2024). Students explore a variety of tools and outcomes related to teamworking which can later be applied in wider clinical practice. Session design allowed for reflection and experimenting with new teamworking tools and has been expanded to incorporate other disciplines of healthcare students to increase exposure to collaborative practice. Results showed students found the use of games engaging and helped highlight the dynamic nature of teamwork. It was reported certain games helped students recognise the development of certain competencies more than others which aligns with the intended game design.
We will discuss how serious games can be used to facilitate teamworking skills, explore the design of each game and the process undertaken to embed this tool in the curriculum, elaborate on our findings and consider recommendations for further development and implementation. Each game makes use of different game mechanics, these will be explored in more detail along with how to adapt to different purposes for individual’s contexts.
This workshop aims to demonstrate how serious games can be used to enhance the development of teamworking skills through exploration of a case study, play, and how you can develop games for your context. This workshop will involve the following,
1: The Literature and the Practical Stuff – a brief description of why serious games are used to facilitate teamworking skills learning and the process undertaken to embed this tool in the IPE curriculum of our case study.
2: Let’s Play – play some of the games designed to foster communication, teamwork, and problem-solving abilities. Descriptionary has a goal to practice clear, concise, descriptive communication, using communication limits to expose frustration. Lego House Build highlights inclusiveness and leadership with event cards demonstrating factors outside players control that impact task outcome.
3: Your Context, Your Games – time for reflection, participants will be encouraged to consider how they will incorporate their learning into their context.
To support consolidation of learning participants will be given paper and electronic worksheets and templates to use to both navigate the workshop tasks and provide a point of reference after the conference.
References, web links and other resources:
References:
1. World Health Organization. Framework for action on interprofessional education & collaborative practice. World Health Organisation; 2010. Accessed January 22, 2024. Framework for action on interprofessional education & collaborative practice (who.int)
2. Sarah Edwards, Lakshman Swamy, Michael Cosimini, Bjorn Watsjold, Teresa M. Chan (2023) Educator’s blueprint: A how-to guide for creating analog serious games for learning in medical education, AME Education and Training, 7:6, https://doi.org/10.1002/aet2.10907
3. Kimberly Battle, Kelly S. Lockeman, Alan W. Dow, Krista L. Donohoe, Lauren Hanley & Patricia W. Slattum (2024) Unpacking interactions among student teams in a practice-based IPE setting: a qualitative evaluation study, Journal of Interprofessional Care, 38:4, 713-721, DOI: 10.1080/13561820.2024.2345829
4. Bjorn Watsjold, Michael Cosimini, Mui P, Teresa M. Chan. (2022) Much ado about gaming: An educator’s guide to serious games and gamification in medical education, AME Education and Training, 23;6(4), doi:10.1002/aet2.10794.