GAMIFICATION / EMAIL to alison james

After reading specific chapters of 'Play at HE' by Alison James I emailed her to ask about possible gamification elements being used on Art courses:

Dear Alison,

My name is Lee Shearman and I am an artist and lecturer based in Winchester,  teaching on the BA Illustration course at University of Portsmouth. 

In addition to teaching at the University I am also part way through my PGCert exploring how Play and Gamification can be used to enhance student's learning in Higher Education.

I am specifically looking at how physical games could be used to enhance student engagement and learning with particular focus on one of the modules, which covers the subject of artists' books.

I have been reading 'The Power of Play in Higher Education' and 'Engaging Imagination' as well as various papers on Gamification with Higher Education.

I am very interested in finding out more about your current research 'The Value of Play' so thought I would reach out to you.

In your research, have you come across any bespoke physical cooperative games being designed and developed by lecturers for use in their teaching- particularly on BA art courses?

---

Hello Lee

I have fond memories of Portsmouth, having had one daughter do her degree there and also from giving various talks over the years there too. You also have the wonderful Amy Barlow, with whom I worked at Winchester.

With regard to your question about physical games and fine arts I can offer a sort of yes/no/maybe answer. The short version is that I have come across physical games in all kinds of contexts, particularly in sports coaching but not just limited to that. Nothing super specific springs to mind re fine arts, but then you also have charities working with schools to bring in the arts dimension broadly speaking, and these involve games - however they are for school children. The no bit is I don't think I have come across physical games specifically for fine art in HE, however this is not to say they don't exist. Hence the maybe!

I'm sure you have thought of this but have you tried doing a questionnaire or survey directly specifically at fine arts HE educators? The other thought I have is this network - which while being for management educators has a very strong arts interest: https://artofmanagement.org/ 

I am conscious I am not really answering your question but hope that some of this is some use?

All best wishes

Alison

I have since looked at Art of Management that Alison suggests and will definitely consider putting together a survey. This could be something I look at at in the next module: Research Informed Teaching / 2023