This innovative board game is designed for players to not only learn about impact-driven education, but to actually experience it. Step into the shoes of a group of students trying to make a positive impact in a city that's being attacked by an AI virus. Use it to encourage deep reflection with teachers, students or learning innovators.
What is the Purpose of this Game?
The “Rise of Roffanova” mimics the experience students can have in an impact-driven course, where they work on a group assignment in collaboration with a societal partner to address a complex city challenge. The elements of the game are drawn based on the real-life experiences and stories of students, teachers, researchers, and learning innovators that are working in this context.
By stepping into the shoes of fictional student profiles, participants have a unique opportunity to experience the challenges and opportunities of impact-driven education from the eyes of a student, including group dynamics, teacher’s demands and feedback, the relationship with the societal partner and the complexities of the city challenge itself.
This experience sets fertile ground for deep and meaningful reflection with the participants. How was the experience playing the game similar or different from their own educational experience? What personal values and strengths did they recognize in themselves while playing the game and how can they leverage them during a course? What can teachers do to support students through this journey? What type of learning environment do we have to create to make this happen? The exact direction of this reflection will depend on your target group.
Who are the Target Groups for this Game?
The game is built on the foundations of the learning landscape for impact driven education and can be used for the following objectives and audiences:
Teachers: use the game to get teachers familiarized with impact-driven education and their role as teachers in such, either as their first contact with this type of education or as a tool to reflect and discuss their own practice.
Students: use the game to encourage students who are about to do or just started with an impact-driven education experience to reflect on their collaboration style, identify their values when it comes to making a positive impact in the city and anticipate challenges and opportunities during their learning journey.
Learning innovators: use the game to let learning innovators experience the design principles of impact-driven education and think about how to support teachers in designing a supportive learning environment. This is also an invitation for them to experience how they can use a game format for educational innovation.
Game Details
Number of players: 3-5 per group.
Time: 40-75 minutes.
Conditions: Best played with a facilitator who guides participants.
Materials: The game is available for anybody and can be easily downloaded and printed. The prints are reusable and will be available after the game’s launch.
About the Creators
This game was developed in 2024 by Denise Levy Abeliuk (Impact at the Core, Erasmus University Rotterdam), Almar Bok (Brûs Design), Nadia Pepels (Studio Nadia Nena).