creative game-based learning in work
TRANSCRIPT
Creative game-based learning in
professional work
Centre for Creativity in Professional Practice seminar, by
Dr Anja Sisarica
About me
● Alumna of Ph.D. in Creativity Science at City University London
● Background in Computer Science
● User Researcher at Signal Media Ltd. - KTP Innovate UK award & Bloomberg UK Business Innovators 2016
● Communications Officer at UXPA UK
@anjasisarica@SignalHQ
What will you hear about today?
● Importance of nurturing creativity skills at work● Creative learning● Creativity & play● Games with purpose● Creative game-based learning for person-centred dementia
care: the story of Hazel Court game
Importance of nurturing creativity skills at work
Creativity can’t be managed, only encouraged in an organisation - bringing creativity to company culture is not an overnight process. Many authors agree that the main factor is allowing time and autonomy for it to happen.
A definition from the literature● “...the ability to produce work that is both novel (i.e. original, unexpected) and
appropriate (i.e. useful, adaptive concerning task constraints)” - Sternberg & Lubart, 1999
● Creativity has established processes, techniques and tools● Creative ideas come from our knowledge● Creative thinkers manipulate their knowledge
...and creativity as a professional skill is more important than ever
Creativity in professional issues
● Research shows 8 in 10 people feel that unlocking creativity is critical to economic growth, yet a striking minority – only 1 in 4 people – believe they are living up to their own creative potential.
● Companies embracing creativity outperform competitors on indicators such as revenue growth, market share, and talent acquisition.
71%believe creativity should be taught
50%said that firms that foster creativity raise their revenue by 10% annually
Creativity in professional issues - contd.● As the sophistication of businesses, technology and consumers increases, the
need to apply creative thinking to business models and strategies is critical for future success. But while creativity is a skill that can be taught to anyone and everyone, many employees are not given the permission, the environment or the autonomy to be creative.
● Research shows that even when organisations hire people who are naturally inclined to be creative, their creative potential will be stifled if the organisational culture does not support creativity. However, the good news is that if an environment supportive to creativity can be established, even employees who are not naturally creative can become so
“We assume that 50% of revenue in five years’ time must come from sources that do not exist today” (Ernst & Young, 2014)
“You see, even when you have a pack of designers roaming your halls, it’s hard for analytical cultures to integrate creative ones. The reason being that analytical cultures traditionally start with an answer, and then break the problem down into its constituent parts, whereas creative cultures start with questions and look at problems holistically.”
- Tim Brown, CEO @ IDEO, February 2016
Creative learning
Inquiry-based science - an idea as old as Socrates, yet there are so many unexplored ways to put it in practice
Teaching for understanding, rather than transmission
● “Creative behaviour emerges from learning environments in which students build their own knowledge through exploratory talk”, built on “generic strategies to reconstruct existing knowledge in ways that allow one to accommodate in fairly rapid fashion new information and ideas” (McLellan, 2012)
● Strategic knowledge (Schulman, 1986); metacognition (Alexander, 2003)
Creativity & play
● Contingency (i.e. turn-taking)● Intersubjectivity (i.e. role-
playing & world-building)● Emergency (i.e. collaborative
creative process)
Uniquely improvisational nature of social pretend play (Sawyer,
2012)
Whilst many studies had young children as participants and domain- general
objectives, there is not much research done on play interventions with intended CPS support in adult, occupational, domain-
specific settings
● A correlation between adult creative abilities & quality of pretend play in one’s childhood
● Successful play interventions to enhance development & creativity in children, but can we do it with adults
Introducing explicit creativity support● One often experiences the creative process as a form of play, because
creative solutions are not accomplished by intellect alone, but by the
play instinct
● Playing with ideas, trying out possibilities, breaking the usual patterns
of thought – these can all be supported by a game (i.e. constrained
playing)
● Many creativity techniques, available for use in creative problem solving process, already have elements of play , such as contingency,
inter-subjectivity and emergence
My motivation was to join frameworks of game design and creativity to explicitly support creativity in games with purpose, and that’s how The Creative Game-based Learning Framework was made
Games with purpose
Some examples
● To train marine staff● To treat cockroach phobia● To overcome negative emotions● To manage large-scale
investment resources● To re-discover cultural heritage
...
of games with purpose (i.e. serious games, games with goals
other than entertainment)
The state-of-the-art of games with purposeThe trend is to provide players
with more ways to create
meanings within games with
purpose that go beyond simulation
dynamics, towards creative
problem solving and expression
that expands the implemented
game borders.
● More non-PC, platform-independent
technology solutions
● More active player roles in co-creating
game contents and dynamics
● New customizable ways of generating and
managing the growing variety of game
outcomes
The story of Hazel Court game
Creativity support in dementia care● The need was recognised for creative
learning interventions for care staff, which
could support carers in devising
imaginative and successful ways of dealing
with challenging situations with a flexible
mind
● Staff need support to “appreciate the
psychological aspects of their caring role,
be given space for their own reflection, be
recognised and valued for the work they
do”
My work delivered a serious game with social/emotional function that provides care staff as an often-neglected user group with creativity skills, which they can use individually or in their meetings to plan and deliver person-centred care, with a potential of wider impact on their well-being
About Hazel Court● Mechanics: customisation, collecting, feedback, resource management, variable
challenge● Dynamics: the creative process, supported by 4 creativity techniques
(brainstorming, analogy, combinations, creativity triggers)● Aesthetics: joy, trust, surprise, anticipation● 5 studies in total, 11 volunteering care homes, >100 professionals taking part in
playtesting sessions● Supported by MIRROR FP7 project (2010-14)
User-centred game design: concept study, paper-prototyping, digital prototyping
Player testimonials (February - May 2014)● “It was a good way of learning how to understand more about the situation, to
get ideas of other people, share my own, and work as a team. The characters were good as they had life stories like real people.”
● “It made me think differently.” ● “Interesting game and enjoyed making choices. A very different approach to
training.”● “Felt confident to share ideas. The feedback helped me to see more ideas.”● “It was an eye-opener and a reminder of how much more we could do to assist
people with dementia to live a comfortable life.”
Results of creative game-based learning● Participants were engaged in the CGBL aesthetics;● The immediate emergent outcomes that the participants created (i.e.
generated final ideas) were found by domain expert raters to be novel, useful and person-centred, with the ratings of person-centredness being the highest;
● The debrief questionnaire results showed that the creativity support potentially becomes as a new variable in enhancing engagement in CGBL;
● Positive qualitative reports on the evolution of teamwork, motivation and person-centred practice among participants.
Some ideas for future work
● New instances of creative serious games could be made for other application domains that require creative problem solving in professional training;
● Compare the effectiveness of different creativity techniques within the same domain; ● Resolve portability/scalability issues;● Investigate whether more sophisticated computational creativity support could replace
the human facilitation of convergent thinking;● Conduct a longer study that would expose players to a CSG for an extended period of
time that would allow the incubation stage of the creative process;● Other researchers and designers could benefit from the lessons learned in the adaptation
of the iterative user-centred game design process.
The CGBL framework and its instances have more unexploited potential: in providing a context for positive creative climate changes; using game as a training tool to open up innovative ways of communicating; and encouraging curiosity and appreciative enquiry.
Thanks for listening!
#HappyWednesday#CassCreativity
@anjasisarica@SignalHQ