Players as Part of an Emergent Social and Complex

• In Event: 77.015 - Canadian Educational Researchers' Association

Abstract

In this paper, we explore how a board game design could support both systems thinking and social interactions of learners. We designed a board game as part of a project that challenged graduate students to develop a game in which players could change the game rules. The rule change allows players to become more conscious of the game rules, and therefore, engage in learning of the game mechanics as well as how the system might be influenced by the rules. Our game board called Green Economy provides a flexible space for the emergent social interactions, and helps students think, act, and engage as a part of the game and social system. We report two-day gameplay observations in a Master of Education course. During the gameplay sessions, we observed and took notes about players observations, reactions, and the strategies employed in the game. We also collected photos from two days of the observations. We observed that players were engaged in systems thinking and anticipatory analyses by interacting with the various game design elements mainly the rule system. We argue that both the playtime and the reflective discussion are essential in engaging learners as part of the emergent social and complex system.

Authors

• Wilian Gatti Junior, University of Calgary

• Beaumie Kim, University of Calgary

• Liping Liu, University of Calgary

• Xingru Lai, University of Calgary