Dr Isabel Murillo, a senior lecturer in Microbiology, has dipped her toes in game-based learning in the past, completing a BILT funded project in 2018/19 in which she developed a board game inspired by Trivial Pursuits called ‘Microbial Pursuit’. The game took two parts: the first part asked students to create banks of questions on the unit content they’ve covered so far; for the second part, students got into groups in the classroom and played out the game using questions created in the first part (read about it here: Microbial Pursuit).
When playing this game, Isabel found that her students really benefitted from working together in groups along with the playful way of learning and opportunity to learn from their peers, all in an environment where they can fail safely.
Following the success of Microbial Pursuit, Isabel started introducing more games into her sessions. She now regularly plays games such as ‘Who Am I?’, perfect as an ice-breaking activity.
Concept to co-creation
After seeing how successful games can be, Isabel embarked upon the creation of an ambitious new game – using the format of an escape room – and engaged students to co-create something that would be both fun and impactful: MicrobEscape Room!
To create the game, she engaged three first year students (Emma Stevenson, Laura Wright and Lydia Mason) at the end of the exam period to work together in a room to design the escape room game. By engaging students in the game design process, she ensured that the content was pitched correctly, enjoyable and flowed well as a game. It also provided the students involved in creating the game with a chance to be support a fun project and get to know each other better.
Once the game was designed, Isabel used some Faculty funding for Education Innovation to create a prototype, and then went on to make 14 replicas – taking over her living room and family’s spare time putting together the complex puzzle. Her daughter even decorated the storage bags to keep the escape room props in!
How the game works
The game starts with a news article where the groups read about a bacteria that has been released in Bristol and a letter from Public Health England. They have to work through a number of microbiology puzzles (from questions to codebreaking to wordsearches) – each leading students to find the letters to form a word, which is the solution to the problem stated in the news article. The questions provide an opportunity to revise the content of the Microbiology Unit students are enrolled in.
The results
The hard work paid off though – Isabel ran the escape room with her students to huge success. The session took place the week before exams in first term with first year students. The class of around 90 were split into 15 self-created groups and they were left to complete the puzzle.
Not only did it create a brilliant opportunity for peer-learning, team-work and problem-solving skills, it also helped create a sense of belonging with students in the group, fostering an environment of play, creativity and informality which, in turn, allowed students to revise the unit content in preparation for their final exam.
BILT’s recent hackathon with international students highlighted the very things Isabel has achieved with this game – informal opportunities to learn, usassessed group work, safe places to fail and the creation of an environment in which students work together to solve problems and have fun.
If you’d like to speak to Isabel about game-based learning, please get in touch with her at I.Murillo@bristol.ac.uk.
