In all partner countries, there are many workers with insufficient basic skills, which gives them less opportunities in their current job place and it also limits their career on the labour market. Also among adults already attending school the lack of basic skills limits their outcome of training and education. The project addresses two major challenges in this field: Low skilled persons have difficulties to use traditional adult education and training where students work independently with texts and assignments. This target group often have reservations towards education, they have very little personal motivation and they tend to believe that attending education will lead to failure. Therefore, the project will innovate new ways of teaching basic skills that will be accessible and adequate for low skilled persons. New learning designs will be developed with the use of analogue and digital serious games, also called serious games. The project will produce two intellectual outputs: a. A guidebook for teaching with serious games. With learning designs, study cases produced in the project and structured recommendations on how to implement new learning designs with serious games. b. An open online training course on teaching: “Changing the game”. As the project runs the course will be presented first as a real-time online course with synchronous participation, and then as an open e-learning resource for asynchronous participation. The project partnership consists of seven EU partners and one associated partner from Switzerland. 5 of the 7 EU partners will develop and test learning designs with games in basic skills teaching for more groups of low skilled learners. The two last EU partners and the associated partner will especially contribute as experts within innovation, evaluation, serious games and learner needs orientation. The project will have immediate impact on the staff involved in the project work groups, and the staff participating in online courses. In turn other teachers at the partner schools, and at the associated schools of the experts, will be invited to use the guidebook and to participate in the online courses. In all the internal staff counts up to some 3500 persons and the aim of the project is to have some impact on 10% of these, and more impact on some 200 persons. The project will work on the impacts in a broader regional context by holding five synchronous multiplier events facilitated by video conference, for an invited external audience of more than 200 persons in all. The partners will also hold two workshops at European network annual conferences to give information about the intellectual outputs. The workflow will consist of preparations for partner meetings, partner meetings established as community of practice, work in groups organised as Joint enterprises working within the Smiley model as method, release of intellectual outputs, workshops at European level and online courses.
The GBT project emerged at a significant time of change and challenge in European educational systems. The importance of games in supporting learning has been recognized but needs to be more integrated into learning design, practice, and assessment. The pervasive growth of enhanced digital technologies has greatly enhanced the opportunities but also needs to be more closely aligned to teacher training and support. Finally, the worldwide impact of the Covid-19 pandemic places new stress on educational systems - as it also impacted the development of the GBT project itself. The theory of the project based on innovation and collaboration made the structure agile & flexible and was considered suitable as it enabled continuous monitoring of progress and quick reactions to needed adaptations like Covid-19. The project objectives include: 1. A Guidebook for teaching with serious games - this output consists of two major sectors: 1.1 General recommendations on teaching with serious games 1.2 Learning designs based on case stories - 2 from each partner 2. “Changing the Game” - a practical course for teachers who want to use serious games in their teaching. The course will stand alone as an Open E-learning Resource (OER). Beneficiaries include: • Teachers and trainers, students with English as a second language and low-skilled workers (City LIt - UK); • Low skilled adults preparing for change of career (Fønix - NO); • Youth, i.e. age 15 to 21 who need to catch up with their basic skills before they can continue their formal education (BFI - AU); • New citizens in Greece in an inclusive and lifelong learning perspective (Platon - EL); • Teachers in Preparatory Adult Education and General Adult Education, Workers on training and for vulnerable young adults (VUC - DK). Approximately 1670 persons were targeted with the project as participating teachers, students and in dissemination activities. The main activities in the project were: • Experimenting with games in basic skills teaching • Learning outcomes with games as a didactic approach • Evaluation on learning outcomes with games • Transnational collaboration and knowledge sharing • Format on learning designs and guidebook • Collaborative content creation “Changing the game” • Get newcomers (non-experienced teachers) to try and use “Changing the game” • Evaluation of “Changing the game” We found that games add valuable aspects to education. Games change the classroom they are used in. They can create immersive worlds and offer challenging tasks. At the same time they bring a new form of interaction to the learning process. They are skills-oriented and emphasise soft skills like communication and collaboration. Games can motivate students who might be otherwise hard to motivate and they bring fun to the process of learning (Guidebook). In particular, the project has led participating teachers/trainers to open their eyes to the learning potential of commercial games such as "keep talk and nobody explodes", “Kahoot” and “Escape rooms”. The dissemination of the project shows a significant interest in using games as a new method. Originally it was intended to produce project specific newsletters, but this was replaced by a stronger concentration on the use of social media tools for both communication and dissemination. Seminars and conferences, webinars, online interviews all formed part of the original plan but in the end were not possible on a systematic basis due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on travel, face-to-face meetings, multiplier events and general organization of publications and events. In the longer term we found that games and now also e-sports as a teaching method provide students with both social, digital, and entrepreneurial competences, when they are used in the basic skills teaching, professional and vocational education.