Res Life Pandemic Angeleena Young Area Coordinator Christina Herrera, Ed.D. Director of Residence Life

Background Efforts to make training more interactive and engaging Professional staff love of table top games

Why A Board Game? Effective and engaging learning tool Provides opportunity to apply information Combines learning and playing

Why pandemic? Cooperative strategy game Effective illustration of how quickly problems can spread if not “treated”

The plan Adapt Pandemic to Austin College residence life Professional staff is represented on the role cards Campus map replaced the world map Areas of concern replaced diseases Build a life-size board and pieces Play!

Actual Game Play There were some minor quirks in game play that weren’t caught in development, but impacted game play during training The life-size game had too many players at once and was difficult to manage Despite the setbacks, it was still an effective instrument for illustrating how quickly problems can spread

Game Play

Introduction Do you have what it takes to save Austin College? As skilled members of a ResLife team, you must keep the 4 areas of concern at bay while discovering their cure. You and your teammates will travel across the campus, programming while finding resources to combat the areas of concern. You must work together, using the S.E.E.D. department’s individual strengths to succeed. The school year is winding down as outbreaks fuel the spread of negativity. Can you find all four cures in time? The fate of Roo Nation is in your hands!

Goal of the Game: Eradicate Negativity Ways to lose: Run out of concern beads, infection rate counter maxed out, outbreak counter maxed out, run out of player cards How to win: Eradicate negativity on campus before any of the above scenarios happen

Setting Up Step 1: Infect Draw 3 Infection cards, place 3 negativity beads in each area Draw 3 more Infection cards, place 2 negativity beads in each area Draw 3 more Infection cards, place 1 negativity bead in each area Step 2: Role Cards Step 3: Deal each player 2 cards from the player deck, then shuffle in 4 negativity spread cards. Place players’ pawns and a Program Station on Roo Suites D Building. Step 4: The player with the most recent birthday goes first!

On Your Turn… Travel Cure/treat negativity Share Knowledge 1) Complete Up To 4 Actions Travel Cure/treat negativity Share Knowledge Build Program Station Special ability indicated on Role Card

On Your Turn… 2) Draw 2 Player Cards 3) Infect Areas Draw the number of infection cards indicated on the infection counter Place 1 negativity bead in each city

Rules: Traveling Drive/Ferry Move along the lines between areas Direct Flight Discard an area card and move straight to that area Charter Flight Discard the area card that matches where you currently are and move to any area Shuttle Flight Travel between Program Stations

Rules To treat negativity, simply remove beads from the board. 1 bead=1 action The Dean of Students can remove all negativity beads from an area with one action! Sharing Knowledge If you and another player are in the same area, you can trade the card for that area The Academic Skills Center can trade any area card as long as they are in the same area as another player!

Rules To build a Program Station, discard the area card for the area you are in The RA/RM may build a Program Center for free once per turn! Hand limit is 7 cards

The Negativity Spread Card

Outbreaks If there are already 3 negativity beads on an area, and the Infection card for that area is drawn again, it triggers an outbreak Add 1 bead of the same color to each area directly connected to the area where the outbreak is originating Increase the outbreak counter by 1

Eradicating Negativity One player collects 5 area cards of the same color That player moves to an area with a Program Station then discards all 5 cards The Head Resident only needs to collect 4 cards!

Let’s Play!

Reflection

Questions for You How did your game go? What was most challenging about trying to control and eradicate negativity? How can you incorporate gaming into your training?

Why is this a valuable tool? Multiple ways to lose, but only one way to win! Visual representation of how quickly problems can expand Reinforces importance of staff cooperation Better understanding of how our department functions

What We Learned Doing a staged walkthrough first would be beneficial Even though it wasn’t successful the way it was intended to be, modeled a teachable moment of when programs don’t go as planned Very good tool for experiential learning Good visual aid to show how fast problems can spread if not taken care of quickly

Recommendations Find resources to help explain rules for different types of learners Do a staged run-through or guided turn before letting players go off on their own Make sure your game facilitators understand the rules and game play thoroughly!

Thanks for Attending! Questions? Please remember to complete the evaluation!!!