Abstract:

In recent years there is a strong focus on games and simulation in higher education. While this fashionable trend may result in improvements in terms of college graduates’ preparedness to real life situations, games are also viewed as a possible avenue for increasing students’ motivation and engagement with course material. Meanwhile, with abundance of theoretical literature on games and simulations, there seems to be a lack of specific examples of using games in humanities, particularly in art history. All my attempts to find specific examples of games in art history courses were fruitless, literature on games and simulations in higher education mostly focuses on teaching health, business, finance, education. In addition to being somewhat discipline-picky, game development most often is accompanied with major grants and/or teams of game developers, a luxury outside reach of many instructors who would like to experiment with games in their courses. This paper intends to provide a description of a game that was developed and used in an art history course in higher education.

Having successfully tested a variety of student engagement strategies, including reenactment of historic events, personalized scenario-based discussion assignments, and role playing, I decided to introduce games in my Art and Revolution undergraduate course. There were 35 students in class, and the course material provided an excellent opportunity for development of exciting games. Students were divided into 7 groups and developed card games based on propaganda images covered in the course. Each group developed a layout for playing cards and a deck of cards. Students also defined the rules for their game and demonstrated the card game to their peers.

The paper explains the details of the assignment, describes the stages of the experiment, and evaluates the specific games used in class. The paper analyzes the advantages and challenges of using games in art history courses. The paper will be of particular interest to instructors of courses in humanities who are interested in using games in their courses.

Keywords:

Games in education, instructional design, art history.