Category Archives: Announcements

Announcements

Save the Date/Call for Blogs

Exciting news from the CUNY Games Network:

1. Do you write a blog about game-based learning, and/or would you like to contribute to ours? Email us a link to your blog or a specific entry about games in the classroom and we may feature it on our website.  [email protected]

2. SAVE THE DATE!

The CUNY Games Network of the City University of New York is excited to announce The CUNY Games Conference 5.0, to be held on January 18, 2019, at the Borough of Manhattan Community College in New York City.

This year, the CUNY Games Conference distills its best cutting-edge interactive presentations into a one-day event to promote and discuss game-based pedagogies in higher education, focusing particularly on non-digital learning activities faculty can use in the classroom every day. The conference will include workshops on how to modify existing games for the classroom, how to incorporate elements of play into simulations and critical thinking activities, as well as poster sessions, playtesting, and game play. For the digitally minded, will also offer a workshop in creating computer games in Unity.

Game-based pedagogy incorporates some of the best aspects of collaborative, active, and inquiry-based learning. With the growing maturity of game-based learning in higher education, the focus has shifted from whether games are appropriate for higher education to how games can be best used to bring real pedagogical benefits and encourage student-centered education. The CUNY Games Network is dedicated to encouraging research, scholarship, and teaching in this developing field. We aim to bring together all stakeholders: faculty, researchers, graduate and undergraduate students, and game designers. Both CUNY and non-CUNY participation is welcome.

Stay tuned for our schedule and call for posters and game presentations. 

Announcements, In the News

Reacting to the Past: Workshop on Innovative History Pedagogy

Author Mark Carnes of Minds on Fire: How Role-Immersion Games Transform College will be facilitating a two-day workshop at Mercy College (Westchester campus in Dobbs Ferry, NY). Please consider joining, especially if you teach history and general education classes.  Please forward to any interested colleagues at your institution.

Reacting to the Past (RTTP) consists of elaborate games, set in the past, in which students are assigned roles informed by classic texts in the history of ideas. Class sessions are run entirely by students; instructors advise and guide students and grade their oral and written work. It seeks to draw students into the past, promote engagement with big ideas, and improve intellectual and academic skills.

Pioneered by historian Mark C. Carnes, Reacting to the Past (RTTP) has been implemented at over 300 colleges and universities in the U.S. and abroad. The initiative is sustained by the Reacting Consortium, an alliance of colleges and universities that promotes imagination, inquiry, and engagement as foundational features of teaching and learning in higher education. The Consortium provides programs for faculty development and curricular change, including a regular series of conferences and workshops, online instructor resources, and consulting services.

Please download the flyer below for more information:

Reacting to the Past Flyer

Announcements

Episode 5 of the CUNY Games Vlog is up!

Join the CUNY Games Network for episode 5 of their gamecasting channel. In this episode, we interview Deborah Sturm, an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the College of Staten Island. Dr. Sturm designed and teaches two gaming electives and introduced an area concentration in game development at her college. Dr. Sturm is the faculty coordinator for the Faculty Interest Group in Gaming and Pedagogy under the auspices of the Faculty Center for Professional Development. She was the Co-PI and a Project Director on a NSF-STEM grant, “Science and Technology Expansion via Applied Mathematics (STEAM),” an NSF-funded program to expand undergraduate STEM education. Through this and other grants, she collaborates with members of the Psychology Department to design and develop research apps for children on the Autism spectrum.

Watch the episode