Table 2. Students as game Designers –...

Table 2.

Students as game Designers – Instructor notes

Instructor and Student Instructions
PHASE 1 (Wk 3)	Pre-Assignment: “Gamification for a Changing Workforce” – Sample assignment questions: Brainstorm one way that employers can use gamification today to recruit and retain Gen Z employees "Engaging Generation Z employees through gamification is an effective way to lead in 2023 more than ever. “Do you agree or disagree with the statement written above? Explain why making a specific, clear, argument True/False (Ergle, 2015): “Only 20% employees are engaged in their work” (True) “Forecaster was AirBaltic’s game to increase employee engagement by having players compete with each other to develop the most innovative idea with a pre-determined budget” (True) True/False (YuKai Cao video): “Average gamer is 35 years old” (True); “68% gamers are over 18 years old” (True); “Gamification is taking all the fun of games and pouring them into nonfun, boring contexts” (True)
PHASE 2 (Wks. 4-5)	Forbidden Island Cooperative-Strategy Debriefing Questions Describe your team’s leadership strategy to win the game How effectively did your team communicate playing the game? Describe the central problem-solving challenges the team faced in playing this game
	How did your team work together to use each other’s special skills and abilities (power)? What other leadership skills did your team use in playing the game? Evaluate how (in)effectively your team was able to teach yourselves to play the game Considering time limitations, how did players’ self-doubt and trust impact how quickly you used self-disclosure to communicate information other players needed? What did you learn about yourself in terms of the roles you tend to play on teams?
PHASE 3 (Wks. 6-15)	Game Designers in Action: Designing a Cooperative Leadership Strategy Board Game Now that students have experienced what a cooperative strategy game is, they understand how teams work together interdependently to share valuable resources for common objectives. When in hybrid format, some questions were turned into team assignments that students answered prior to class Step 1. Game Designers: Developing Game Storylines (Week 6), Players (Week 7), Game Materials (Weeks 8–9), and Playtesting (Week 10) a. Summarize cooperative leadership strategy game characteristics. Remind students they must develop a “cooperative strategy” type game, meaning that either everyone on the team wins, or everyone loses. We shared with students some “best practices” of cooperative strategy games, and that competition will lead to failure while collaboration will lead to success. However, each player should not need the input of the group when making decisions (make sure each person has voice and is engaged). When designing the game, provide benefits for effective decisions/actions, and negative consequences for ineffective decisions b. Instruct students to develop the main storyline or plot of their game. How do all players “win” the game or “lose” the game? Ask students to imagine a story context or problem that will motivate anyone playing the game to solve. In FI, the player adventurer team had to discover 4 hidden treasures before the island sinks. Describe plot examples of student games, such as Espionage Invasion, in which players were HR professionals for BrainTech in search of a company spy (Kornias, Aquino, & Gedge, 2019)
	Have students brainstorm player roles and the valued resources they possess. What roles are necessary for the players to successfully work together to solve the problem? What valuable resources do they control that others need? For example, in FI, the Diver could swim through island titles that have ‘sunk’. In some games, students gave players unique abilities to retrieve secret codes hidden in the game to stop threats (e.g. enemy attacks, floods, etc.) c.Tell students to sketch a gameboard for their storyline. Sketch a gameboard on a dry erase board or a piece of paper. d. Develop player decision-making actions to resolve the problem. “Actions” represent “decisions” that must be made by the player, in collaboration with the team. Brainstorm actions that players can take to resolve the central problem (e.g. move on the gameboard). In some student-designed games, when a puzzle was solved correctly, players received a piece of the secret code to achieve the final objective. e. Develop final gameboard and components (e.g., player pieces, gamecards, player role descriptions, etc.) based on game storyline context. f. Name and play game. Video record your team playing the game.
	Step 2. Game Designers: Design the Game Instructions Booklet (Week 11) Instruct students to develop their Game Instructions Booklet. Students begin working on instructions in class and finish out-of-class to submit by the deadline. We provided them with a handout with specific information to include. Then they worked in small groups during class time to develop answers. Provide feedback on their ideas. Students continue to work on instructions as they simultaneously develop the game
	Step 3. Train the Trainer: Develop a “Train the HR Trainer” Facilitation Guide (Week 12) Ask students to then imagine themselves playing the game. Ask them to describe what team leadership skills are used in the game (e.g. communication, problem-solving, conflict management, power and influencing tactics, self-disclosure, negotiation, etc.).
	Step 4: Presentations: Teams present their original game (Weeks 14–15) End-of-Semester Optional Debrief Questions**: Looking at the list of team leadership topics in the course, where did your team excel and where was your team weak in operating as an effective team? How did your team intentionally design the game to teach problem-solving, conflict-management, and negotiation leadership skills? Furthermore, why is the chosen focus important to leadership based on your team’s experiences? How did your team work together (or not) regarding using your leadership voice? How would you like to improve upon this in a later team project? How did the assignments and game design process change your views on what is required to be a successful leader? What did you discover about yourself as someone who will manage teams in your career?

Instructor and Student Instructions
PHASE 1(Wk 3)	Pre-Assignment: “Gamification for a Changing Workforce” – Sample assignment questions: Brainstorm one way that employers can use gamification today to recruit and retain Gen Z employees "Engaging Generation Z employees through gamification is an effective way to lead in 2023 more than ever. “Do you agree or disagree with the statement written above? Explain why making a specific, clear, argument True/False (Ergle, 2015): “Only 20% employees are engaged in their work” (True) “Forecaster was AirBaltic’s game to increase employee engagement by having players compete with each other to develop the most innovative idea with a pre-determined budget” (True) True/False (YuKai Cao video): “Average gamer is 35 years old” (True); “68% gamers are over 18 years old” (True); “Gamification is taking all the fun of games and pouring them into nonfun, boring contexts” (True)
PHASE 2 (Wks. 4-5)	Forbidden Island Cooperative-Strategy Debriefing Questions Describe your team’s leadership strategy to win the game How effectively did your team communicate playing the game? Describe the central problem-solving challenges the team faced in playing this game
	How did your team work together to use each other’s special skills and abilities (power)? What other leadership skills did your team use in playing the game? Evaluate how (in)effectively your team was able to teach yourselves to play the game Considering time limitations, how did players’ self-doubt and trust impact how quickly you used self-disclosure to communicate information other players needed? What did you learn about yourself in terms of the roles you tend to play on teams?
PHASE 3 (Wks. 6-15)	Game Designers in Action: Designing a Cooperative Leadership Strategy Board GameNow that students have experienced what a cooperative strategy game is, they understand how teams work together interdependently to share valuable resources for common objectives. When in hybrid format, some questions were turned into team assignments that students answered prior to classStep 1. Game Designers: Developing Game Storylines (Week 6), Players (Week 7), Game Materials (Weeks 8–9), and Playtesting (Week 10) a. Summarize cooperative leadership strategy game characteristics. Remind students they must develop a “cooperative strategy” type game, meaning that either everyone on the team wins, or everyone loses. We shared with students some “best practices” of cooperative strategy games, and that competition will lead to failure while collaboration will lead to success. However, each player should not need the input of the group when making decisions (make sure each person has voice and is engaged). When designing the game, provide benefits for effective decisions/actions, and negative consequences for ineffective decisions b. Instruct students to develop the main storyline or plot of their game. How do all players “win” the game or “lose” the game? Ask students to imagine a story context or problem that will motivate anyone playing the game to solve. In FI, the player adventurer team had to discover 4 hidden treasures before the island sinks. Describe plot examples of student games, such as Espionage Invasion, in which players were HR professionals for BrainTech in search of a company spy (Kornias, Aquino, & Gedge, 2019)
	Have students brainstorm player roles and the valued resources they possess. What roles are necessary for the players to successfully work together to solve the problem? What valuable resources do they control that others need? For example, in FI, the Diver could swim through island titles that have ‘sunk’. In some games, students gave players unique abilities to retrieve secret codes hidden in the game to stop threats (e.g. enemy attacks, floods, etc.) c.Tell students to sketch a gameboard for their storyline. Sketch a gameboard on a dry erase board or a piece of paper. d. Develop player decision-making actions to resolve the problem. “Actions” represent “decisions” that must be made by the player, in collaboration with the team. Brainstorm actions that players can take to resolve the central problem (e.g. move on the gameboard). In some student-designed games, when a puzzle was solved correctly, players received a piece of the secret code to achieve the final objective. e. Develop final gameboard and components (e.g., player pieces, gamecards, player role descriptions, etc.) based on game storyline context. f. Name and play game. Video record your team playing the game.
	Step 2. Game Designers: Design the Game Instructions Booklet (Week 11) Instruct students to develop their Game Instructions Booklet. Students begin working on instructions in class and finish out-of-class to submit by the deadline. We provided them with a handout with specific information to include. Then they worked in small groups during class time to develop answers. Provide feedback on their ideas. Students continue to work on instructions as they simultaneously develop the game
	Step 3. Train the Trainer: Develop a “Train the HR Trainer” Facilitation Guide (Week 12) Ask students to then imagine themselves playing the game. Ask them to describe what team leadership skills are used in the game (e.g. communication, problem-solving, conflict management, power and influencing tactics, self-disclosure, negotiation, etc.).
	Step 4: Presentations: Teams present their original game (Weeks 14–15)End-of-Semester Optional Debrief Questions**: Looking at the list of team leadership topics in the course, where did your team excel and where was your team weak in operating as an effective team? How did your team intentionally design the game to teach problem-solving, conflict-management, and negotiation leadership skills? Furthermore, why is the chosen focus important to leadership based on your team’s experiences? How did your team work together (or not) regarding using your leadership voice? How would you like to improve upon this in a later team project? How did the assignments and game design process change your views on what is required to be a successful leader? What did you discover about yourself as someone who will manage teams in your career?

Notes:

**The instructor can facilitate some of these questions during class or create individual or team assignments with these questions to submit during the semester for feedback

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