CHAPTERS - The Books of Wisdom

Post Apocalyptic Ethical Theory Adventure Game

Project Team PPCC: Lynne Garcia, Bruce McCluggage, Ken Riddle, John Schavey, Richard Curran Trussell

*Chapters

*Students using Chapters increased their scores half a letter grade (5.3 pts) in applying ethical theories vs. classes not using it in course pre & post testing.

*The Books of Wisdom is on online learning experience to supplement teaching ethical theory and to enhance discussion in Ethics courses. A compelling narrative, fascinating characters, and unique artwork draw the student into a post-apocalyptic world to restore the once vibrant library containing the culture’s wisdom and knowledge. This will stop the descent in to anarchy and allow one’s community to be rebuilt and revitalized.

*The student’s avatar must travel to various colonies organized around a single theory, learn from the characters living there, then take an exam on that theory.

*The enclaves include Egoism Empire, Relativism Range, Utilitarian Union, Kantian Kingdom, Care Community (feminist ethics), Virtue Village, Natural Law Nation, and Social Contract Confederacy.

*Developing Critical Thinking

Skills

*Students must draw from their classroom resources as well as the narrative in order to excel on timed exams.

* Both the narratives and graphics contain symbolism to help explain the theories to students.

*Most of the characters in the game are real philosophers.

* Seeing a caricature of a philosopher and reading their theories in story-form help cement these figures in one’s mind.

Utilitarians determine moral decisions by tabulating the pain and pleasure that would result with different choices using Jeremy Bentham’s algorithm.

*Game Levels

*A student must achieve a 90% in order to pass the exam and move on.

*Students can repeat the exam until they pass with the necessary 90%, but will earn lower points on subsequent tries.

*To add challenge, some other questions rotate into the exam on new attempts. The question a student missed may or may not show up on the next attempt.

*Each student gets some randomly generated questions from the pool on the first attempt, so it is unlikely any students will get identical tests.

*Individual and Group Learning

*The points earned can be used to increase the student’s own score, or a portion can be donated to a pool to build the entire class.

*In an exam, the student may buy hints using the community pool. This interaction brings a new dimension to studying ethics as students consider moral implications of their own interests, the interests of the community, altruism, the greater good, etc.

*Additionally, whole classes can compete against each other in overall ranking.

Ayn Rand on the movie set of a western championing rugged individualism in Egoism Empire

*Authentic Application of

Ethics

*The interactivity has the potential to foster intense classroom discussion. Instructors and students have access to leaderboards and transaction logs that record the game dynamics within the class.

*Students are able to challenge those who are free-riding and commend those who are serving the entire class.

*Instructors who utilize these tools will find that ethical discussion transcends theory to the practical implications of working within a community.

*For more information contact Project Director Richard.Trussell@ppcc.edu

*CC BY and Attribution

Post Apocalyptic ethical Theory Adventure Game byLynne Garcia, Bruce McCluggage, Ken Riddle, John Schavey, Richard Curran Trussell at Pikes Peak Community College under a Colorado Community College System Immersive and Game Based Learning Grant is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.Based on a work at http://www.ppcc.edu/departments/philosophy/.Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available athttp://www.ppcc.edu/departments/philosophy/.