{"id":73150,"date":"2024-06-12T00:01:56","date_gmt":"2024-06-12T04:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=73150"},"modified":"2024-06-12T00:01:56","modified_gmt":"2024-06-12T04:01:56","slug":"how-game-worlds-are-helping-health-care-workers-practise-compassionate-clinical-responses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/how-game-worlds-are-helping-health-care-workers-practise-compassionate-clinical-responses\/","title":{"rendered":"How game worlds are helping health-care workers practise compassionate clinical responses"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A game world is a fantasy universe based on a story and a theme.<\/p>\n

In learning contexts, such as in schools or professional continuing education, game worlds permit us to teach complex subjects in an engaging way by rehearsing competencies and roles in a fictional narrative.<\/p>\n

But games also\u00a0invite game users into contemplation<\/a>. In the work of some researchers,\u00a0contemplative learning is learning that enables deeper engagement<\/a>\u00a0by including elements from the learner\u2019s world that enhance the educational context. In a game world, this could mean enabling an understanding of other cultures, reviewing histories of ideas or reflecting on personal reactions to learning while inhabiting new roles and worlds.<\/p>\n

With colleagues at the digital media program at Toronto Metropolitan University and the\u00a0Baycrest Academy for Research and Education<\/a>, our work is focused on designing game worlds that draw on contemplative learning to provide training for health-care workers who provide or lead care. Our games are also\u00a0now in use with the World Health Organization, the United Nations and with<\/a>\u00a0health-care providers, educators and students in Ontario.<\/p>\n

Values central to learning<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Contemplative learning can go beyond simple reflection. Contemplative principles to trigger emotional\u00a0responses in the learner can lead to self-actualization<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Through these emotional responses aided and guided by narrative, learners can experience a deeper understanding of the self and their own lived world.<\/p>\n

Contemplative approaches to learning and teaching are not only focused on acquiring knowledge and skills, but also on values and attitudes which are central to learning.<\/p>\n

Game world built on myth<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Meta-narrative refers to an overall\u00a0ethical or mythological structure upon which the game world is based<\/a>. It provides value-added learning that is difficult to effectively deliver through conventional simulation.<\/p>\n

Judgments about the value of one\u2019s learning in the real world can be enveloped in meta-narrative.<\/p>\n

In other words, mythological\u00a0stories can elicit specific emotional responses<\/a>\u00a0in learners that encourage them to create new templates to organize knowledge and attitudes and enable \u201cspiritual transformation.\u201d With regards to our game world design to train health-care providers, spiritual refers to a\u00a0quest for meaning<\/a>, harmony, safety and compassionate responses in clinical care.<\/p>\n

Our goal is to introduce and reinforce narrative as an engagement strategy to increase learners\u2019 emotional investment in training.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Carthage Chronicles\u2019<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Our first action adventure game,\u00a0The Carthage Chronicles<\/em>, is named for\u00a0an ancient city<\/a>\u00a0in what is now Tunisia. Because Carthage was a great trading civilization, players engage in relational care practices with in-game characters from a wide range of geographies, cultures and faiths. The game world setting establishes that co-operation across nations and faiths is a better way to live than through conquest.<\/p>\n

A meta-narrative of co-operation across diversity underpinned the entire design. In this way, contemplative pedagogy and game world design is structured to help learners to deal with a multicultural and multi-faith professional world.<\/p>\n

To date, more than 2,600 learners have completed\u00a0The Carthage Chronicles<\/em>\u00a0to\u00a0learn how to manage complex age-related conditions such as dementia<\/a>. This is supported by Ontario\u2019s Ministry of Long-Term Care as a strategy to train personal support workers and nursing professionals in aging care.<\/p>\n

Design, implementation and evaluation are managed by\u00a0the Ontario Centres for Learning, Research and Innovation in Long-Term Care<\/a>\u00a0at Baycrest. This work is directed by\u00a0Raquel Meyer<\/a>, one of the authors of this story who holds a\u00a0doctorate in nursing health services<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2018Hypatia\u2019s Guild\u2019<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Following the success of\u00a0The Carthage Chronicles<\/em>, we\u00a0then built a game world called Hypatia\u2019s Guild<\/em><\/a>, which was also funded through the Ministry of Long-Term Care. Both \u2018The Carthage Chronicles\u2019 and \u2018Hypatia\u2019s Guild\u2019 are tailored to educators working in long-term care homes across Ontario on a platform called\u00a0Learning Inter-Professionally Heathcare Accelerator (LIPHA)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Screenshot of what a game user sees at the beginning of \u2018Hypatia\u2019s Guild.\u2019 (Adobe Stock), Author provided (no reuse)<\/p><\/div>\n

In\u00a0the Hypatia\u2019s Guild<\/em> game world<\/a>, set in contemporary Ontario, learners role play an immortal being as part of a team of 2,000-year-old superheros.<\/p>\n

As one of the first recorded female professors in antiquity,\u00a0Hypatia was known<\/a>\u00a0as a brilliant philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. In our fictional narrative, Hypatia trained a guild of immortals to preserve the knowledge of how to fight evil. Alongside the guild, learners rescue Earth from an alien invasion that leaves people in a state called \u201cacedia.\u201d Acedia is a medieval term that refers to a loss of excitement and engagement in life.
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