Welcome to the November 2019 edition of the newsletter for GGC's Digital Learning Community! The purpose of this newsletter is to facilitate connections and communication between GGC faculty and to highlight some of the interesting and innovative ways in which faculty are using digital technology in their courses.

Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Yvonne Hefner and Dr. Samantha Mrstik

Using Simulation in Preservice Teacher Preparation

The use of avatar-based simulation in educator preparation programs is becoming more commonplace, not just in the United States, but worldwide. Drs. Hefner and Mrstik, faculty in the Special Education program, decided it was time to bring that ingenuity to GGC. All types of instructional techniques can be rehearsed in the virtual reality simulation, including managing classrooms, working with children with special needs, and practicing specific instructional routines relevant to a particular subject area. Faculty are able to customize simulations to deliver personalized simulations for teacher candidates. The use of avatars provides an immersive experience in a safe space preparing teacher candidates for the real world of teaching by providing an opportunity for repeat practice and immediate feedback from the instructor and peers.

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Faculty Spotlight: Dr. David Kirschner

Sociology in My Video Games?

Game-based learning in the college classroom remains an underutilized pedagogical practice, despite most young Americans regularly playing video games and the positive impact of games and simulations on cognitive, affective, and behavioral learning outcomes. Practical obstacles such as cost, accessibility, and legitimacy remain to be overcome, but educators are uniquely positioned to use these cultural artifacts in their teaching.

I often teach sociological content, including complex topics like intersectionality and rationalization, through the lens of video games and gaming culture. For the past two years, I have taught in a learning community experimenting with game-based learning. I also use video games in upper-level courses such as Death, Grief, and Dying (HDAS 4010) and Sociology of Disability (SOCI 3060).

Key components of game-based learning include:

Reading. Students read scholarly work that is directly related to course content, assignments, and gameplay (e.g., “Gamergaters and Geek Masculinity” [Braithwaite, 2016] to explore gender and sexuality in gaming culture or “Foucault’s Fitbit” [Whitson, 2014] to reflect on technology, health, and social control).

Playing. Students have brief, group-based play sessions during class. Gameplay is the core experiential learning component of the learning community.

Reflecting and Analyzing. Students complete writing assignments linking readings, course content, and gameplay (e.g., a short paper paired with the “Foucault’s Fitbit” reading answering the question, “Are our thoughts free?” after playing Beholder [Warm Lamp Games, 2016] and Orwell [Osmotic Studios, 2016], two games about privacy, surveillance, and the state).

Students, like most people, typically have a narrow understanding of video games: they are unexamined, taken-for-granted, naturalistic products for entertainment or scapegoats for society’s ills and the perceived shortcomings of “kids today.” Video games are useful tools to teach students content and that games are not “just” games; they are ideological worlds created by people in social contexts, they make arguments about the world through the complex systems and processes that they model, and they are as much a part of the “real world” as you and I.

To put all of this together, here is an example of the most recent game-based learning lesson I used in the learning community. After a lecture on bureaucracy, work, and rationalization, students played the computer game, Papers, Please (Pope, 2013). Papers, Please is a “dystopian document thriller” where players play as an immigration inspector at a border checkpoint in a fictional Soviet-style country. At first, players follow simple rules to check a few details on hopeful immigrants’ passports, but increasingly constraining rules soon make this task tedious and complex. Players receive money for each immigrant they correctly process, which goes toward providing food, shelter, and medicine for their family members. As the tension rises between quickly and correctly processing immigrants, players become stressed and begin dehumanizing the immigrants. As one student wrote:

To be honest it’s not really a fun game. You’re not really given a lot of time to think. You need to be quick but also do your job correctly or else you’ll be punished. You have to find a way to immerse yourself into this repetitive, mindless rhythm in order to do your job as the inspector both quickly and effectively, and if you don’t do it right the government will know right away since they’re always watching you. Another note is that the game sort of makes me not want to feel or care about anything other than following the rules. What I mean by this is that I don’t really see the immigrants as anything more than a number on a screen. I can’t really afford to think of much else because the more immigrants I get done right as quickly as possible, the more I get paid to be able to help the inspector’s family and not get into any trouble.

Crucially, students connect their gameplay experiences to the real world. As one student reported:

It made me think how unfair the system can be skewed against those that need to get into a country. A person, for example, may be trying to get away from war, but didn’t have the chance to get the paperwork they needed to enter a country. The inspector is not necessarily there to hear their story and why they need to get out. They are just looking at the documents and seeing if it’s valid.

The last part of the assignment is creative. Students write a letter of resignation to their supervisor wherein they must correctly use concepts discussed during the week in class. They are able to draw parallels between work in Papers, Please and their own jobs, which are usually the kinds of alienating minimum-wage jobs available to teenagers. Using video games to teach sociology requires students to participate in the arguments that games are making and encourages them to develop empathy through role-taking and to reflect on current issues and their own lives.

Do you have any questions or comments about this topic?

Faculty Spotlight: Tonya DeGeorge & Dr. Katherine Pinzon

Using Adobe Spark for Self-Reflection in ACCESS Math Classes

Teaching a mathematics support class requires understanding students’ struggles with mathematics as well as their own perceptions of their learning. The students in co-requisite courses do not only struggle with the mathematics content. They also need time and guidance to learn how to think about their own learning and ways to overcome personal barriers, such as poor study habits, lack of confidence in their abilities, and motivation to change their behavior. To help students become reflective learners, we asked our students to participate in multiple activities throughout the semester, such as exam debriefs, learning journals, midterm check-ups, study skills, class discussions, and mindset assignments. After taking an Adobe Education Exchange course (Making Math and Science Creative using Adobe Spark), we decided to take the tools of the course and offer students a creative way to display their own knowledge. This three-part self-reflection assignment allows students to create a digital story to sum up what they have learned about themselves; their mindsets, how they handle struggles and feedback, and what they think it takes to be successful (as students, mathematicians, and people).

We began by introducing how Adobe Spark is used and included video and pdf how-to guides on Adobe Spark to create pages. Students then created a Spark page on their “math story,” a personal story highlighting numbers that are significant to them and their lives. This took about 30 minutes of in-class time and most students were able to finish in that time.

To delve deeper into how our students think about themselves, we asked students to answer prompts on their own qualities in the second part of the assignment. The goal of this summative reflection was to tie together everything they had been learning and doing in their mini reflections throughout the semester. Students were able to choose prompts based on their interests. Examples of prompts included describing a time when they made a mistake, what they do when they do not understand something, and describing something they have been wanting to change about themselves. Students created written reflections, graphics and videos to create a cohesive story integrating these prompts together. The students could choose to create a Spark page or video to tell their story.

Finally, the third part of the reflection (which students are currently working on) asks students to extend these ideas beyond our classrooms. Although we want our students to apply these skills and mindsets to our own classrooms, truly successful students are those who can take what they learned and apply it to new contexts or situations. Students will reflect on and critique how others in the world think about terms such as “growth,” “success,” and “smart.” For example, students will define “success” and determine the types of qualities and traits of people who are successful and then describe how they intend to adapt those same qualities to help them be successful in future classes and life. In addition, they will discuss fixed and growth mindsets and the differences between them. This will allow them to reflect on how mindsets can affect a person’s outcomes and surpass personal barriers they may have in their lives.

We hope this assignment will highlight students’ growth over time and illuminate the skills/behaviors students’ think are important to be successful in life. Knowing how students think about these important concepts is the first step in helping them be successful in future courses. Adobe Spark has given us the opportunity to explore these concepts in a mathematics classroom while also giving students the freedom to be creative on their reflective journey.

Do you have any questions or comments about this topic?

Faculty Spotlight: Stephanie Denny

Using D2L’s “Groups” Feature

In my English 1101 classes this semester, I experimented with the “Groups” feature in D2L to help me with the group project I usually assign. While the students have a choice in topic and in how they present that topic (they can decide whether an essay blog, podcast, movie, or PowerPoint-type presentation would work best), all the groups have the same daily assignments associated with the project, such as notes and outlines.

The “Groups” feature (which can be accessed under “Course Administration” in D2L) worked out really well in this regard. I made one dropbox for each group, and they could see what other group members had posted (but not what other groups had posted). This saved time and confusion for everyone. For instance, if a group’s outline was due, I would only get one submission instead of repeat submissions, and students had a shared place to access that work. It also helped students stay on the same page. One student was absent in the morning, and I had him in a class later that afternoon. When he asked what his group members had done or needed, I quickly referred him to the dropbox so that he could see the progress his group had made earlier in the day and build on that.

The other features that I like about “Groups” include:

• The grade which gets entered applies to all group members, along with the comment. I did not need to assign the same grade to members in one group three or four times in the gradebook.
• The tool lets instructors randomly assign students to groups or make the enrollments themselves. (So if you use a group generator website ever, you could use this feature instead.)
• Instructors can also associate a discussion board with the group, so the students can communicate there. (In the future I might use this as a place for a group discussion response or reflection.)

I know that most students are comfortable with sharing work through programs like Google Docs, and many of my groups still used Word and Google Docs to actually do the work. However, the Groups feature gives them peace of mind that their group is submitting the requirements for an assignment and ensures everyone has access to that progress.

Do you have any questions or comments about this topic?

Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Tobias Wilson-Bates

Using Group Podcasting for Research and Reflection in English Classes

This semester I taught an English 1102 course that centered on the figure of the robot as a way of investigating what it means to be human in the late industrial period. Students read texts from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) up through Catherynne Valente’s Silently and Very Fast (2011) to consider different visions of artificial life as a response to the rapid industrialization of lived experience.

Central to the class were the paired processes of doing research and considering what forms of representation can best articulate and disseminate complex researched ideas. The final project for the course was a group podcast in which students were encouraged to consider how this particular genre of communication configures a kind of mass intimacy, both the feeling of being part of a friendly conversation, while actually being one of a large listenership. Students looked to combine elements of personal narrative, speculation, and researched argumentation to produce podcasts that engaged a number of technological concepts.

One group created a podcast called “Controversiality” as a vehicle for debating controversial ideas in emerging gene editing techniques. In the podcast they consider the pitfalls of babies designed to avoid potentially deadly genetic conditions, but also began to think through what it would mean if those babies were also hypothetically predisposed towards intelligence, beauty, and athleticism.

Overall, the production and presentation of the projects went well in the class with students actively engaged in what it means to be a scholar engaging in a public-facing conversation on difficult topics.

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Upcoming Events:

Mindful Mondays in the CTE (through December 16th)

Do you typically feel like you’re being pulled in a dozen different directions at once, with no time or energy to find your balance? Make a small (but rewarding) investment in yourself this summer and join us in the Center for Teaching Excellence for Mindful Mondays. These weekly mindfulness sessions are intended to give you a chance to just sit still and breathe for a while – to relax, de-stress, and re-center yourself.

Interested? Then join us in the CTE for Mindful Mondays! We offer two sessions every Monday; one from 9:30 a.m. - 10:30 a.m., and another from 1:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. Each hour will be broken into two half-hour periods. In the first half-hour, a short introduction will be followed by a short meditation, which will be followed by a short period for reflection / comments / Q&A. In the second half-hour, a silent meditation (10 - 15 minutes) will be followed by a short period for reflection / comments / Q&A. These sessions are open to all GGC faculty and staff.

You do not have to stay for the full hour, or even for a full half hour - come for ten or fifteen minutes if you like, or for however long you are able to stay. If you have already participated in the introduction / instructions and would like more time to meditate, however, you are welcome to continue sitting through the entire session. Complete beginners are welcome, as are experienced practitioners.

CTE Winter Institute (January 3rd):

This event is still in the planning stages; the link below will be updated as soon as we have more information, so please check back at a later date.

Reacting to the Past Winter Conference | Engaging the Future: Purposeful Teaching for Real World Learning (January 17 - 19)

About the 2019 - 2020 Digital Learning Community

The 2019-2020 Digital Learning Community is the current iteration of GGC's year-long faculty learning community focused on the effective use of digital technologies for teaching and learning. This community is a natural evolution of the CTE's Digital Learning Track. Originally a series of traditional face-to-face sessions, the Digital Learning workshops have gradually moved to an online self-paced format over the last few semesters. The Digital Learning Community combines the resources available in these online workshops with the collaborative potential of the Academic Commons (the CTE's online platform for faculty communication and collaboration), creating a rich environment for the sharing of knowledge, resources, and experiences related to the use of technology in education at GGC. It is our hope that this virtual community will provide new opportunities for experimentation, discussion, and collaboration that will strengthen the GGC community and enhance teaching and learning across the campus.

This year, all of the Digital Learning workshops from the CTE are available in Brightspace as online, self-paced workshops which are supplemented by optional face-to-face discussions / workshops. Once you sign up for the 2019-2020 Digital Learning Community, you will have access to all of the workshops in one online course. Although we plan to highlight one or two different workshops every couple of weeks (offering soft deadlines for completion as we move through each workshop), you are free to complete any of the workshops at any time (and at your own pace) over the course of the academic year. We will also be adding more workshops during the summer and over the course of the year, so keep an eye on the course Contents link in Brightspace.

Remember that this is YOUR community. The more that everyone engages with and participates in the community, the more everyone will get out of it.

About the Digital Learning @ GGC newsletter:

This newsletter is produced by the Center for Teaching Excellence at Georgia Gwinnett College. Please direct any questions or comments to the CTE.

How are YOU using technology at GGC? Would you like to be featured in a future issue of this newsletter? Contact the CTE for more information.

This edition of the Digital Learning @ GGC newsletter was created using Adobe Spark Page, a digital tool for creating online presentations.

Click here for an alternate version of this newsletter created using Microsoft Sway.