Game: Food Inc.

Food Inc. is a powerful movie describing everything you never wanted to know about where our food really comes from.
Michael Pollan, in his brilliant bestseller "The Omnivore's Dilemma", described exactly how ubiquitous is our friend, corn: High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is in everything from ketchup to Coke; cattle, who are ruminants and should only eat grass, are corn-fed (sounds wholesome, doesn't it?); ethanol, a corn sugar, is made into gasoline, and the list goes on.  In fact he describes a McDonald's meal this way:
"This is how the laboratory measured our meal: soda (100% corn), milk shake (78%), salad dressing (65%), chicken nuggets (56%), cheeseburger (52%), and French fries (23%). What in the eyes of the omnivore looks like a meal of impressive variety turns out, when viewed through the eyes of the mass spectrometer, to be the meal of a far more specialized kind of eater"
Disturbing, isn't it?

Supersize Me is a film by Morgan Spurlock in which he documents his experiment with an only-McDonald's diet for a month.  At the beginning of the month, he is tested by doctors and is certified a slim, healthy man.  By the end of the month he is near death.

I wanted the students to go on a journey from corn to hospital following four different routes: HFCS, beef, pork and tomatoes.  I designed a board game where each of the four players starts out as an ear of corn.  Then each one follows a different path: HFCS, cow feed, pig feed, transportation and refrigeration for tomatoes.  Along each path are cards that you can pick up to find the story. 
All paths lead to the hospital where you select a card.  If you're lucky, you survive.  If not, you die of diabetes, heart disease, cancer or E coli.

Games: effort, luck and hindrance

Psychology students are doing a unit on how to deal with special needs children inside a regular class.

One of the biggest problems people of all abilities and disabilities seem to have is confusing luck, effort and hindrance.

For instance:
"The teacher gave me an F on my exam."  This kid sees the teacher as a hindrance, but it's up to the student herself to put in the effort.

For instance:
"I couldn't be bothered doing the reading."  This kid may have a learning difficulty such as dyslexia, but covers it up as a lack of effort.

For instance:
"My teachers say I'm just lazy."  Maybe this student does try but needs extra help.  The teachers are hurting, and hindering him, by saying this.

Here are three short games to help students identify the problem and one longer task to reflect on it.

1.  All of the students are given the same text to read and questions to answer.  Some students have some of the text blacked out so that they have a harder time reading.  The first student to answer the questions correctly wins a candy. 
Discussion: how did you feel during the game?

2. A running race: the winner gets candy.  However, some of the students have their legs tied.  Some of the remaining students are told they must hold the hands of the ones who have their legs tied.  Only the students who are untied and free to run will win. 
Discussion: how did you feel during the game?

3.  Students are given pennies to count.  The student with the highest total wins the candy.  Some students have 23 pennies, some have 24, and some have 25, but only one has 26. 
Discussion: how did you feel during the game?

4.  Each student is given a card with a specific disability written on it (dyslexia, wheelchair-bound, asperger's, even genius).  They are asked to research their "character" and write a journal in which they react to receiving an F on a test.  They deliberately misattribute their failures to luck, effort or hindrance.  They then exchange journals and try to point out the error of their thinking.

action research vs case studies

ATTENTION ALL ACTION RESEARCHERS

The mission: to journey through the literature until you find at least 10 good sources that will start you on the road to your research project. 

The dangers: how do you find "good" sources?  How do you decide if they're what you're looking for?

The challenge: to journal your research journey and reflect not only on what you find but also on how you go about finding it.

BUT BEWARE
You have a case study researcher on your tail who wants to analyse how you do research.  Will you help her?  Or won't you?...

Game: research philosophies

How do you make a game out of research philosophies?

Give students the following words each on separate cards.

positivism
objective
reliable
generalisable
interpretivism
understanding
specific
interpretive
critical theory
critical
practical
emancipatory
discourse analysis
language
values
assumptions

Can they categorise them correctly and win the coffee?

Kids, courting

Read Kids, Courting, an article by Joe Fiorito in his collection entitled, "Tango on the Main".  This is a girl who is trying very hard to be rebellious and is almost succeeding.  She's 15 and has already been arrested for theft.  She smokes and scrawls swear words on her backpack.  She uses stolen dye to color her hair blond and purple and her roots are an inch long. The story opens on her flirting in a subway car with a couple of teenage boys who are wowed by her attitude.
Contrast this with the heartbreaking fictional stories written by my students about homeless children. 

The game:
A silent dialogue on a piece of paper passed back and forth between a homeless child and the girl in the story.  The child needs to convince the girl to go straight.  She probably won't.