Dobble Debate Takes Europe

Photograph of Dr. Heller, Nina Czegeldy and other workshop participants handling the cards.

 

Congratulations to Dr. Lynne Heller and Nina Czegledy on their recent success with presenting the research project Dobble Debate: Serious Play at two European venues. Lynne shared the following comments:

"Dobble Debate is an umbrella project that uses games, humour and imagination to promote discussion and education about dis- and differing abilities. Our team were honoured to be invited to present our research at two European venues this spring. The first event took place at the Disruptive Media Learning Lab at the University of Coventry, a university funded space that "is a semi-autonomous cross-University experimental unit whose remit is specifically to drive innovation of teaching, learning and practice forward”. We were invited by Dr. Jackie Calderwood, a researcher in the institution and the director of the lab Dr. Jonathan Shaw. We conducted a workshop with a group of interested researchers, counsellors and administrators. As always in our workshops co-creation is key. In this case the group seemed most interested in developing the game to avoid labels and rote ways of identifying dis- or differing abilities. This led to gameplay suggestions that were vastly different than any of our other workshops had elicited. 

Our second engagement was with the Centre for Contemporary Art Laznia, in Gdansk, Poland. Nina Czegledy, our principal investigator, has a long history of collaboration with the centre and in particular its director Jadwiga Charnzynska. We stayed for a week and during that time were able to work extensively with the staff, a translator and graphic designer to translate the card game into Polish for wide distribution to public institutions throughout the country. We also conducted a well attended presentation and workshop. Most of our participants for this event were students of education from the University of Gdansk. The Laznia Centre provided us with simultaneous translation more for our benefit than the audience’s—they all spoke English very well, but when they started to play the game and innovate they spoke Polish and that is when we really benefited from having some language help. After the students and their professors came up with variations on the gameplay we realised there was a very different approach developing. Narrative was forefront in all their iterations. Storytelling and embellishment were the mechanisms they found most useful for learning through play. 

We are very grateful to everyone who helped us with this phase of our SSHRC funded project. It was an encouraging and uplifting experience, offering up different perspectives and nuances for consideration. We are looking forward to more collaboration with both institutions."

 

Department: 
Photograph of Dr. Heller, Nina Czegeldy and other workshop participants handling the cards.

 

Congratulations to Dr. Lynne Heller and Nina Czegledy on their recent success with presenting the research project Dobble Debate: Serious Play at two European venues. Lynne shared the following comments:

"Dobble Debate is an umbrella project that uses games, humour and imagination to promote discussion and education about dis- and differing abilities. Our team were honoured to be invited to present our research at two European venues this spring. The first event took place at the Disruptive Media Learning Lab at the University of Coventry, a university funded space that "is a semi-autonomous cross-University experimental unit whose remit is specifically to drive innovation of teaching, learning and practice forward”. We were invited by Dr. Jackie Calderwood, a researcher in the institution and the director of the lab Dr. Jonathan Shaw. We conducted a workshop with a group of interested researchers, counsellors and administrators. As always in our workshops co-creation is key. In this case the group seemed most interested in developing the game to avoid labels and rote ways of identifying dis- or differing abilities. This led to gameplay suggestions that were vastly different than any of our other workshops had elicited. 

Our second engagement was with the Centre for Contemporary Art Laznia, in Gdansk, Poland. Nina Czegledy, our principal investigator, has a long history of collaboration with the centre and in particular its director Jadwiga Charnzynska. We stayed for a week and during that time were able to work extensively with the staff, a translator and graphic designer to translate the card game into Polish for wide distribution to public institutions throughout the country. We also conducted a well attended presentation and workshop. Most of our participants for this event were students of education from the University of Gdansk. The Laznia Centre provided us with simultaneous translation more for our benefit than the audience’s—they all spoke English very well, but when they started to play the game and innovate they spoke Polish and that is when we really benefited from having some language help. After the students and their professors came up with variations on the gameplay we realised there was a very different approach developing. Narrative was forefront in all their iterations. Storytelling and embellishment were the mechanisms they found most useful for learning through play. 

We are very grateful to everyone who helped us with this phase of our SSHRC funded project. It was an encouraging and uplifting experience, offering up different perspectives and nuances for consideration. We are looking forward to more collaboration with both institutions."

 

Department: