GOBLIN kicked off for the second semester this week. John and I ran four cohorts of this faculty learning community during the Spring 2016 semester and are facilitating two more GOBLIN sections over the next five weeks.
I’m really looking forward to this round of GOBLIN. We’ve fine tuned some of the content, and are continually iterating on our game, but more importantly, I’m excited to have some fun playing games and learning with this group of faculty and graduate students. One participant shared this feeling today when they said:
“[GOBLIN] may be the only fun I get to have this semester.” – GOBLIN participant
Setting aside the pressure of providing the singular fun learning opportunity for someone, I’m extremely grateful to bring some joy into this instructors life. (Goodness knows the world needs some more joy at the moment.) With every teaching opportunity, I’m adamant that learning should be fun and GOBLIN is such a testament to this philosophy.
Ideas From Discussion
To share some of my excitement, I’ll throw out some of my favorite questions and statements as a snapshot of today’s discussion:
What’s the relationship between scaffolding and a difficulty curve in the classroom?
How do relationships and emotions impact course scaffolding and a courses difficulty curve? How can we push students harder when we have a relationship/rapport with them?
We don’t want to assess students if it’s their first time performing a task.
How do we encourage students outside of our discipline to engage in our courses?
How do we design curiosity into our courses?
The character classes and skills from GOBLIN are a metaphor for our students and the variety of skills they bring into the classroom. Each student possess different proficiencies to excel in certain opportunities over others.
Can you see why I’m psyched for more GOBLIN?!