The agile teacher, is a gameful approach to faculty and staff workshops, that provides opportunities for discussion, collaboration and intellectual collision. The workshop invites participants to think through common challenges that arise in courses, and address issues of technology integration, personalized learning and student/teacher interaction.
Link to Workshop Kit: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B2YHQLJAVjC8MzgtTDA1V1dLX1k?usp=...
In the Summer and Fall of 2017 a team made up of designers, teachers and students at Michigan State’s Hub for Innovation in Learning and Technology set out to create a game that allowed for conversation and creativity among faculty. The initial goal of the game was to generate adaptations of active learning strategies. However, as the game developed it shifted focus from active learning specifically, to the issues and challenges in teaching. Transforming from a game, into a gameful workshop.
The Agile Teacher, is a gameful workshop, with goal of generating creative thinking around challenges that occur during the course of teaching. While the workshop was designed with adaptability in mind, the basics of the workshop are as follows
-
Participants are grouped into teams
-
Each team is given a stack of context cards, dynamic cards and challenge cards
-
Course cards - Set the basics of the type of course the participants will be thinking about. They come in format, size and subject categories.
-
Dynamic Cards - These are a set of issues and considerations that may change the dynamics of a course. They come in collaboration, feedback, exploration, tech savvy and self-directed categories
-
Challenge Cards - These are problems that may arise during a course. Teams can use these cards to disrupt other teams.
-
-
Teams draw one format card, one size card and one subject card.
-
Based on the cards they have drawn, spends some time individually, and as a group, coming up with an activity for that course.
-
Then they draw a dynamic card, and attempt to address the issue on the card.
-
The team then assess the activity they came up with.
-
Another round begins, and Teams draw two more dynamic cards and a challenge card.
-
They attempt to address the dynamic cards, and can play the challenge cards on another team.
The specifics of the workshop, number of rounds, cards, and even what the team is working on, can all be adjusted or replaced depending on the needs of the workshop. This specific instance will include two rounds, this will allow participants enough time to experience the game, while still making room from questions and discussions. In the past, when this workshop has been presented, participants enjoyed how the workshop asked tem to think outside of their comfort zones, and brought up issues they would have otherwise not been aware of. Also, since most of the experience is focused on the audience, with very little talking from the presenter, there is a high degree of engagement and interest from the participants.
OLC participants will gain access to a digital repository that contains all of the workshop elements. This will allow them to download, and remix, and utilize these elements as they see fit.