Games Based Learning MOOC

How would you incorporate the hero's journey into an assignment? Or what is the role of narrative in game based learning?

Back when I was a first semester MBA student, in our bootcamp course we were grouped up by the second session. For all intents and purposes that was our team until the end of the semester, and we would be working on a lot of team projects together. There was also the optional part of studying together, but this wasn't required by our program.

This setup reminds me a lot of a raiding party, where different people have different strengths in the party, but you all work together to accomplish a goal, and in the process, you end up improving your areas that you are weak in.

When I was going my MEd, I came across a journal activity (many times actually) where learners were asked to record a journal (usually once a week) to record their impressions, learnings and opinions for that week.

I was thinking to myself, and pondering. I was pondering how these learning groups could be paired with journals. This way you have a hero (individual student) working collaboratively in a party (the team), and each hero could have his own quest journal where artefacts and impressions can be collected. Maybe I am thinking too deeply about this :\

AK, not too deeply, if we don't do that we don't learn how to swim, no one gets to be a better swimmer staying on the shallow end of the pool!

We did a mix, wasn't so much a game, but in Anthropology of Folklore we saw STar Wars (first one) and District 9, the discussion was on the hero's journey and the identified key components (call to action, etc.) in Star Wars, that was EASY, but District 9 got a lot of discussion as you had to look harder. We then talked about and wrote about our own hero's journey, which there are many adventures and they identified one "call to action" they answered and one they "refused" and what was the difference in where their journey went next.

I might try to create a card based game for one of my classes in the spring, the Anthropology of Religion might work.

We all are on our own hero's journey whether we are aware of it or not.

Morning thought:

Too deep (in the pool) and you might drown, too shallow and you won't learn. The ZPD in action? ;-)

Other thought:

I am wondering if Star Wars is so embedded in the western psyche at this point (it is a popular reference, even if you haven't seen it), so it's hard to think about it objectively - but district 9, being a newcomer (and one without such a cult following), makes it easier to examine.

#6531675 grasshopper98 wrote:

AK, not too deeply, if we don't do that we don't learn how to swim, no one gets to be a better swimmer staying on the shallow end of the pool!

We did a mix, wasn't so much a game, but in Anthropology of Folklore we saw STar Wars (first one) and District 9, the discussion was on the hero's journey and the identified key components (call to action, etc.) in Star Wars, that was EASY, but District 9 got a lot of discussion as you had to look harder. We then talked about and wrote about our own hero's journey, which there are many adventures and they identified one "call to action" they answered and one they "refused" and what was the difference in where their journey went next.

I might try to create a card based game for one of my classes in the spring, the Anthropology of Religion might work.

We all are on our own hero's journey whether we are aware of it or not.