Episode 43 Building Soft Skills with Games

Building Soft Skills with Games

Hi and welcome to Experience Points by University XP. On Experience Points we explore different ways we can learn from games. I’m your host Dave Eng from games-based learning by University XP. Find out more at www.universityxp.com

On today’s episode we’ll cover building soft skills with games.

Games are capable of helping students learn any number of different skills. Likewise, simulations can be used to help students learn something more intuitively than they would from traditional classroom instruction.

One of the most general outcomes for games-based learning is the development of student’s soft skills. These are skills that can be used across a number of different areas, industries, and outlets.

So what soft skills can we learn from games? How are games used for soft skills development?

This episode will cover the different areas that games-based learning can be used for addressing soft skills development. This episode will cover cognitive internal development; relational development; as well as how games can be used to develop students’ communication and creativity.

This episode will close with actionable items for using games-based learning to achieve these skill competencies.

Let’ start with digital games. Digital games often don’t provide any wait time for players. Individuals take single actions and then are immediately rewarded. This helps with the feedback loop of players in traditional game design.

However, table top games offer a different perspective for players. They often require players take actions now that won’t produce any measurable effects until much further along in the game. In this way, table top games reward students’ patience for continued and engaging play.

Likewise, table top games also test students’ applications of logic and strategy. I spent a past holiday playing a large and diverse array of table top games with family. Their ages ranged from my age to much younger cousins.

Despite the age difference, I saw many applications of logic and strategy in games as simple as Doce and as complex as The Manhattan Project. Each one was challenging in their own right; but the amount of effort needed to excel at both was considerable.

Lastly, games also facilitate students’ critical thinking and problem solving by posing the most basic question in most scenarios: what moves can I make to help me win the game?

These can be as simple as just continuing to survive in endless running games like Temple Run or in heavier games like FTL: Faster than Light. In both scenarios, players must problem solve on the fly and think critically about how decisions they take now will affect their player later on throughout the game.

Games do not exclusively help students develop their own internal cognitive development. They can also facilitate their relational development: specifically how their actions affect the state of the game as well as their relationships with other players.

One of the most common types of relational development is through spatial reasoning:

the capacity to think about objects occupying a space and then draw conclusions about how those objects fit in relation to one another. 

One of my all-time favorite games Blokus is the king of this genre. Here, players are challenged to get all of their pieces on the board to score the most points. Though, other games like Patchwork and Convert also test players’ spatial reasoning capacity.

In addition, games can test and reinforce players’ collaborative skills as they work with and for other players in order to achieve their goals.  One of the best table top examples of this is the Matt Leacock‘s line of collaborative games like Pandemic, Forbidden Island, Forbidden Desert, and Forbidden Sky.

Each one tests players’ abilities to collaborate and cooperate with one another in order to achieve a common goal. More serious players might consider games such as Mage Knight, Gloomhaven, and Spirit Island as options that further push the limits of what is possible for table top cooperative gaming.

Lastly, games test players’ abilities to manage limited resources to achieve their game goals. This is most prominent in modern euro games where any number of actions are disguised as different things that players can do.

Those actions often involve turning one thing into another thing. This process usually results in the creation of victory points.  While that description alone doesn’t sound that enticing, there are entire communities of players who are enthralled by it. Modern classics such as Agricola and Settlers of Catan rely heavily on resource management as a way for players to excel and win the game.

Perhaps one of the most salient aspects of games-based learning supporting soft skills growth is in players’ development of communication and creativity: both of which come through more highly social and creative games.

Returning to one of my old standby games Balderdash reminded me of the kind of creativity needed to not only think of definitions to obscure words; but to write them in a such a way where other players would vote for them.

Likewise, games like Just One require that players take the simple action of selecting just one clue to reveal to a teammate. But the commonality and creativity of that clue is what helps set players apart from one another.

Creativity alone doesn’t have to be about creating made up definitions. Working in uncertain conditions where negotiation and interaction are prioritized definitely fall within the domain of games.

A favorite large group game of mine (Empires) relies on the negotiation aspect in order to move play along. The Sherriff of Nottingham emphasizes this even more where interaction and negotiation form the hallmark of the game’s core loop.

Communication and creativity seem to be one of the most promoted ways of utilizing games-based learning. This is because games are seen as a way to replace traditional media like lectures, audio, and video.

This is particularly relevant when using something like role-playing and simulations. Both of these represent real life scenarios where students will need to put their learned skills into practice.

While many games can be re-purposed for games-based learning; almost all table top games can be used in one fashion or another to promote communication skills between players.

Effective communication is perhaps one of the most important soft skills to develop. And if you ever need a forum to practice it: try explaining 4-5 different board games a week to different players on a regular basis.

Games can be used to meet a great many learning outcomes for educators. The most salient of which is to address communication barriers between students and players. Playing games provides a structure from which educators can scaffold the interactions between players.  Games’ involve formal elements and structures that create a framework for individual players to interact with one another.

In addition, educators can praise students’ agency, efficacy, and perseverance in a games-based learning environment. Of course, players will want to win; but in most circumstances winning will not be the most important outcome. Therefore, equal focus on making sure that players continue to play and engage is just as important.

This episode covered the different areas that games-based learning can be used to address soft skills development. The episode covered cognitive internal development; relational development; as well as how games can be used by students to develop better communication and creativity.

This episode reviewed some of the positives of games based learning for adult education. It included the application of games compared to other activities as well as some digital applications of games based learning.

I hope you found this episode useful. If you’d like to learn more, then a great place to start is with my free course on gamification. You can sign up for it at www.universityxp.com/gamification You can also get a full transcript of this episode including links to references in the description or show notes. Thanks for joining me!

Again, I’m your host Dave Eng from games-based learning by University XP. On Experience Points we explore different ways we can learn from games. If you liked this episode please consider commenting, sharing, and subscribing.

Subscribing is absolutely free and ensures that you’ll get the next episode of Experience Points delivered directly to you. I’d also love it if you took some time to rate the show! I live to lift others with learning. So, if you found this episode useful, consider sharing it with someone who could benefit.

Also make sure to visit University XP online at www.universityxp.com University XP is also on Twitter @University_XP and on Facebook and LinkedIn as University XP. Also, feel free to email me anytime at dave@universityxp.com Game on!

References

7 Fun Communication Games That Increase Understanding. (2019, March 13). Retrieved December 19, 2019, from https://www.userlike.com/en/blog/communication-games.

8 Ways Board Games Teach Life Skills: 2nd Nature Academy. (2018, January 10). Retrieved December 19, 2019, from http://tnotgroup.com/generation5c/2018/01/10/board-games-life-skills/.

Eng, D. (2019, December 3). Core Loops. Retrieved December 31, 2019, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2019/12/3/core-loops.

Eng, D. (2019, June 18). Feedback Loops. Retrieved December 31, 2019, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2019/6/18/feedback-loops-in-games-based-learning.

Eng, D. (2019, June 4). Formal Game Structures. Retrieved December 31, 2019, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2019/6/04/formal-game-structures.

Eng, D. (2019, June 25). Simulations vs Games. Retrieved December 31, 2019, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2019/6/25/simulations-vs-games.

Grooms, M. (2019, June 4). Soft Skills: The Hidden Benefits of Playing Board Games " Homeschool Gameschool. Retrieved December 19, 2019, from https://homeschoolgameschool.com/softskills/.

How Board Games Teach Soft Skills to Children. (n.d.). Retrieved December 19, 2019, from https://www.fsagames.com/how-children-can-learn-soft-skills-from-board-games/.

Soft Skills Games for Corporate E-learning. (2019, April 16). Retrieved December 19, 2019, from https://www.indusgeeks.com/blog/soft-skills-games-for-corporate-e-learning/.

Using Games to Build Soft Skills. (2018, October 4). Retrieved December 19, 2019, from http://info.thinkfun.com/stem-education/using-games-to-build-soft-skills