Steering Committee

Joe Bisz, PhD, is a national professional development speaker, educational games designer and consultant, creative writer, and an English professor at the City University of New York (CUNY). His critical work has been published in journals such as Computers and Composition Online and Transformative Works and Cultures. His book The Allure of Play: The Educator’s Guide to Designing Games and Creative Active-learning Exercises is forthcoming in March 2023 by Teachers College Press. He co-founded the professional development group The CUNY Games Network, delivered over 150 presentations outside his college, and was awarded 16 grants. Joe has spoken to many educators and managers who desire high-impact pedagogies and technologies: game-based learning is the best tool he’s found for this mission. (See Joe’s website at http://joebisz.com)

Robert Duncan is an Associate Professor of Behavioral Sciences at York College and the CUNY Graduate Center. Research interests include cognitive neuroscience, functional magnetic resonance imaging, glaucoma, neurodegenerative disorders, attention, learning, memory, educational technology, pedagogy, and developing games for education.

Carolyn Stallard is an Adjunct Instructor at Brooklyn College’s Conservatory of Music and former Instructional Designer at Guttman Community College. She created a video series on pedagogical practices for CUNY instructors teaching online, which can be accessed here. Outside of CUNY she teaches after-school music, plays softball, works as a freelance percussionist, and travels wherever the wind takes her, often by bicycle.

Deborah Sturm is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the College of Staten Island, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses. She designed and teaches two gaming electives and introduced an area concentration in game development. 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.

Selected Publications

1. Duncan, R.O. (2019). Confidence and Critical Thinking are Differentially Affected by Content Intelligibility and Source Reliability: Implications for Game-based Learning in Higher Education. Journal of Interactive Technical and Pedagogy, 15.
2. Daiute C., Duncan R.O., Marchenko F. (2018).  Meta-communication Between Designers and Players of Interactive Digital Narratives. In: Rouse R., Koenitz H., Haahr M. (eds) Interactive Storytelling. ICIDS 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. 11318 2018: 134-142.
3. Daiute C. & Duncan R.O. (2017). Interactive Imagining in Interactive Digital Narrative. In: Nunes N., Oakley I., Nisi V. (eds) Interactive Storytelling. ICIDS 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. 10690 2017: 282-285.
4. Smale, M. A. (2015). Play a game, make a game: Getting creative with professional development for library instruction. The Journal of Creative Library Practice. Retrieved from http://creativelibrarypractice.org/2015/05/18/play-a-game-make-a-game/
5. Offenholley, K. (2014). Online Tutoring Research Study for Remedial Algebra. The Community College Journal for Research and Practice, Vol. 38 (9). Retrieved from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10668926.2013.803941#.VAzSzvldWSo
6. Offenholley, K., Wladis, C, George, M. (2014). Leveraging Technology to Improve Developmental Mathematics Course Completion: Evaluation of a Large-Scale Intervention, The Community College Journal for Research and Practice, Vol. 38 (12). Retreived from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/.U3DmnygXLcU#.VAzQk_ldWSo
7. Bai, X., Duncan, R.O., Horowitz, B., Glodstein, S., Graffeo, J., Lavin, J. (2012). The added value of 3D simulations in healthcare education. Journal of Nursing Education. 4(2): 67-72.
8. Bai, X., Lavin, J., Duncan, R.O. (2012). Are we there yet? Lessons learned through promoting 3D learning in higher education. The International Journal of Learning. 4(2): 67-72.
9. Bisz, Joe. (2012). Composition Games for the Classroom. Computers and Composition Online. Retrieved from http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/english/cconline/cconline_Sp_2012/Composition_Games/compositiongames/Composition_Games_for_the  _Classroom.html
10. Offenholley, K. (2012). Gaming your Mathematics Course: The Theory and Practice of Games for Learning, The Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, Vol. 2 (2). Retrieved from http://scholarship.claremont.edu/jhm/vol2/iss2/
11. Offenholley, K. (2012). A Discourse Analysis of the Online Mathematics Classroom. The American Journal of Distance Education, Vol. 26 (4), 236-248
12. Smale, M. A. (2012). Get in the game: Developing an information literacy classroom game. Journal of Library Innovation, 3(1), 126-147. Retrieved from http://www.libraryinnovation.org/article/view/182
13. Bai, X., Horowitz, B., Duncan, R.O., Glodstein, S., Graffeo, J., Lavin, J. (2011). Designing Case Studies through 3D Simulations for the Health Professions. Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications. AACE.
14. Offenholley, K. (2011). Toward an analysis of video games. Journal of Mathematics Education at Teachers College (JMETC), 2. Retrieved from http://journals.tc-library.org/index.php/matheducation/article/view/716
15. Smale, M. A. (2011). Learning through quests and contests: Games in information literacy instruction. Journal of Library Innovation, 2(2), 36-55. Retrieved from http://www.libraryinnovation.org/article/view/148
16. Bisz, J. (2009). The birth of a community, the death of the win: player production of the ‘Middle-earth collectible card game.’ Transformative Works and Cultures No. 2.

Complete curricula vitae