Motivation for learning and education through computer games

Case Study - Gameworkshop – Glostrup Albertslund Production school (GAP)

How can the young people's interest in computer games turn from being an obstacle to a
commencement of education, promoting the motivation and prerequisites for completing a youth
education instead?

Overview
A few years ago, The Gameworkshop was established at Glostrup Albertslund Production School.
In this casestudy we have focused on the students’ background and their outcome, - as well as their
experience of the workshop.
It is clear for everybody that the Gameworkshop is a success with very good results. It attracts young
people who are not motivated for ordinary education and who find it difficult to enter into communities in
general. Many of them find their way into the education system after a year in the workshop.

The survey is based on statistic material, interviews with students and teachers, and observations in the
classroom over a period of almost one schoolyear.
That means that some of the students have been interviewed both in the first weeks in the workshop and
shortly before they finished.
It has not yet been possible to follow up on their further education.

The most important statistic findings is:

2/3 of the students have indicated one or more psychological diagnoses upon enrollment.
The success rate is higher than average among the workshops, despite the students’ more challenging
background.
(most students continues with education)

The students’ opinions – the most important:

The social environment is the most important factor among the benefits of the workshop.
Teaching/learning is driven by sincere interest.
Possibility of specializing.
Finding out that game experience is valuable.
It is accepted that you are different.

Observations in the workshop:

The students learn how they can influence their participation – instead of avoiding participating.
Open talks about anxiety and personal difficulties.
Everybody is accepted and respected.
There is room to be one self, but everybody is also involved in joint projects.
Teachers are clear about their expectations in relation to individual potential.

The teaching method and organization of the workshop is inspired by project work in creative companies,
more than traditional school.
The results give reason to investigate whether this workform can be spread to other workshops.
Furthermore, it is a hope that the results of the work on computer games as an entrance to learning, can
contribute to the involvement of teaching through games being widely used in many educational systems.
Especially boys lose the motivation for education by traditional learning, but the opportunities for
developing and experimenting in the work with computer games is highly motivating for them.
Background
A growing number of young people do not have sufficient qualifications to attend a youth education, and
the number of young people who drop out of education is also increasing, especially in vocational
education.

The national strategy for youth education focuses primarily on raising students' academic levels in primary
and secondary schools, while at the same time raising the academic level of vocational education, to attract
young people who would otherwise choose high school.
This focus on academic skills is a great problem for those who have not done well in school, and many of
them lose the belief that there may be a future for them.

Over 20% of young people from Albertslund municipality who left school in the summer of 2015 did not
achieve the required level in Mathematics. Some of them take an extra year to reach the level, others try to
get an unskilled job or just give up.

An alternative to ordinary school or job is the Production School (GAP), where the approach to learning is
practical training in different workshops.
The success rate has been quite good, with more than 65% of the students continuing in further education
after leaving the Production School, but the last 3-4 years the number has been decreasing.
Not only because of the academic demands in the youth educations.
A growing number of boys seems to have great difficulties in finding interest in education.
Often they have spent a year or more at home, isolating themselves with their computer and frustrated
parents. The real world becomes irrelevant to them, and dreams revolve around a future in the gaming
world - either as a professional gamer or as a developer of computer games.
Very few, however, seriously pursue the dream, and instead lose faith in education and work.

They are not able to start an education, they can’t get a job, and the traditional workshops in the
Production School don’t appeal to them.
New subjects and methods are required for this group, and that’s the reason for establishing the game
workshop.

The results so far are quite good. The workshop attracts a group of (mostly) boys with very poor social
skills, and with very little success in secondary schools. A high percentage have a diagnosis, typically autism
disorder. Many of them have ended up without finishing their exams.
The experience from the first years is that the number of young people moving on to further education
from the Gameworkshop, is fully in line with the best performing workshops, in spite of their apparently
weaker background.
In this case study we have tried to find out more about the students’ background, what works, why it works
and what we can learn.
The Institution
Glostrup Albertslund Production School

Glostrup municipality founded the Production School in 1997. In January 1st 2013 Albertslund municipality
stepped in as a partner. The two municipalities are now equally represented at the school board. The
Production School receives students from the greater Copenhagen area.
The location in the school system is between primary school (up to 10th grade) and youth education.
The purpose of the production school is to motivate and prepare young people for continued education.
The target group is youth from the age of 16-24 – most of them are under 20 years.

There are about 200 young people starting at the school throughout the year. The amounts of time they
attend is individual, and the average for a school period is about 7 months. Many students follow a school
year from August to July.
The challenges the youth have are usually about academics, but also personal and social problems. Many
feel lonely and feels excluded from the community, and many having serious domestic conditions. Some
have psychiatric problems such as ADHD, ADD, Tourettes syndrome, autism, anxiety or social phobia. Some
have addictions and find it difficult to function without marijuana.

The school is organised in twelve different practical workshops, where the students can learn about a craft
or a subject of their interest through practical work. These subjects can be metalwork, social work, media,
cooking or design. Calculation, reading and writing come as a natural part of the daily work, but the
students can also enroll in Danish and mathematics lessons.
In this Case Study our focus is on the newest workshop, The Gameworkshop.

The Gameworkshop

The Gameworkshop is a preparatory one year course with a capacity for 18 students. The uptake of
students is ongoing, meaning that the course can be flexible to meet the needs of every individual student.
The main emphasis of the course is to prepare the student regarding choice of- and readiness to engage in
a future education or vocational training.
The workshop based approach is a setting where learning emanates from a practical, hands-on experience.
Several workshops create and develop products and services for the local community at a non-competitive
price. Here The Gameworkshop offers a test facility for danish game companies and develops game based
learning resources for several organizations.

History

The Gameworkshop evolved from being a three year course aimed at special education students with an
interest in IT. At that time, in 2009 it went under the name, IT and Communication. The emphasis here was
both to let students develop IT skills, as well as personal and social skills.
As time progressed, it became clear that students found common ground in their mutual interest in
computer games. This lead to the hiring of a game developer, who began training students in level- and
game design.
At the time the notion of bringing computer games into a learning arena met a fair amount of skepticism.
We could see that the results of learning in and with games were high motivation and engagement in
conversations based on the game content being created - but we were not clear about how to align these
results with the formal requirements of the course.

This lead to many discussions both internally as well as with parents, leadership and student supervisors. In
turn, it made it clear that we needed to formalize our method to justify how and what kind of learning was
taking place. To meet this need we adopted a culture of documentation, to create visibility and share our
reflections about what was happening.

By sharing our experience we soon found that our practice based experience resonated well with the trend
at the time, - that educators around the globe were becoming curious about bringing games into the
classroom. Here one game stood out in particular and that was Minecraft. We found that this game was a
completely flexible environment in which we could produce a wide range of learning scenarios. It also was a
great platform for creating game design as it was easy to learn, but also offered a high degree of
complexity, making it possible to differentiate when creating assignments.

One thing that especially stood out was that the co-creation in game was great at challenging students to
collaborate in their designs. We found that a significant part of success in the game came from the ability to
communicate and plan before entering the game.
We had become well known as a national and global player in developing resources and experimenting
with new methods of learning. This lead to participation in national research projects and involvement in
co-developing MinecraftEdu.

Simultaneously there also was an increasing awareness about 21st century skills - here we could confirm
through our experience, what previous years of research already had concluded.

In the beginning of 2014 we officially assumed our name, The Gameworkshop. The first year was a very
open and experimental phase, where we promoted self-leadership, and learning based on curiosity and
experimentation. At this point the workshop had one teacher and 10 students. Students worked on
individual projects at their own pace, while being supervised in their progress. With many coming from a
negative school experience, rebuilding enthusiasm for learning was central, and also discovering how to
learn again.

The basic structure of our approach consisted of two components; the common project and the individual
project. In the common projects we would develop a product or service for a customer. This allowed us to
experience delivering quality on time and made the workshop a real life experience of a workplace.
Individual projects let students specialize in their own areas of interest. Here the most important
prerequisite was their own curiosity, from here they were guided by a workshop facilitator to find learning
resources and create structure. Students were required to document their work and record it on a personal
blog using pictures, text and video.

A year and a half in, we experienced a surge in interest around our workform. Along with this it was evident
that having a facilitator with high level expertise could help many students progress in individual projects.
In October of 2015 we hired our first new workshop teacher, which gave us the ability to expand our
capacity and heighten the quality of our services.
Since October 2015 we have been developing our work form further towards creating a method. This has
been done by establishing workshop routines and some modus operandi, that make our method easier to
adopt.

Goals

The main goal of The Gameworkshop is to develop the students at an academic, social and personal level
by unfolding and expanding the students’ interests and competencies in working with making- and testing
games.

The Gameworkshop is working at creating a method of our daily routines, to give students the best
structure as possible. We aim at creating fixed agreements, internships and collaborations with game
companies, in order to give students insight into the game industry, as inspiration for their future careers.
We also aim at working together with existing game related educational institutions, to better position
ourselves as a preparatory course.

Our objectives are:

- Training students in steady attendance, as well as practicing basic workshop skills such as
participating in a collaborative work community.
- To challenge students to self-leadership by creating structure and planning daily activities, in order
to train career and life skills.
- To give the student a broad experience with game production through working with and in games,
thereby clarifying their choice of a future education.

Method
Our routines can be broken down into the following components:

Breakfast
Every morning the students meet at 7:45 in our canteen for breakfast, students sit together at their own
table. We encourage students to start the day on a full stomach so they have energy to apply themselves
during the day. This session also serves as an informal start to the day where students get to socialize and
small talk. At 8:00 there is a short briefing for the day and we are all sent off to the workshop with a “Have
a great day!”.

Landing
Until 8.30 the workshop teachers get in sync and plan out details for the day. Students are required to call
in sick or let us know if they are coming late before 8.30. It is not permitted to use text messages to inform
of this. For individuals who repeatedly come late we adopt a stricter policy, where they are sent home
again. As students receive a student wage, according to the time they are at school, we can deduct them in
their wage for every hour they are not present.

Stand up
At 8:30 we have our stand up - this is a meeting form adopted from the Scrum method. It is used to keep us
focused on making it short and to the point. Students get an overview of the day and are prepared for what
they will be doing.

Information sharing
Our work is often dependent on us being able to handle vast amounts of information efficiently. Our
preferred platform for organizing all activities and sharing information is Trello. This interface gives us the
ability to create overview of workflows as well as embedding details “under the hood”. Along with this we
use Google Drive to share smaller files and documents and at last we have a network drive to share larger
documents.

To keep track of events we share a common calendar with students, so they can organize their own
activities around their school schedule. The calendar is the backbone of our standup.

Common / Individual projects

The most of our weekly schedule consists of work on individual or common projects. In the individual
projects students define a personal goal that they wish to work on. This can be a production or an online
course that they wish to work on. The workshop teacher helps facilitate by setting milestones and providing
resources.
The common projects are where all students work together to deliver a product or service to a partner or
customer. Here we have created Minecraft learning materials or tested games as a part of a game
company's quality assurance. This gives the students a real experience of working together as a part of a
larger team, and provides many real lessons in working on a real production.

Classes
In certain periods we invest time in teaching basic skills in photoshop, premiere and 3Dmax. These are
professional tools that we see as vital for game developers to master. Students will use these programs
throughout the year to develop and document their work. It also gives a good entry into software
terminologies and acts as a stepping stone to work with other software in the Adobe creative suite.

Game jams
About four times a year we spend a week creating games using the game jam work form. The students are
typically divided into two teams and set to develop their own game based on a theme and some given
criteria. The work unifies many of the skills that students have developed through individual projects and
classes. Furthermore, it challenges them to use these skills in collaboration with others. Essentially, the
game jam is the training ground, where students develop creativity- and problem solving skills that are vital
for the future job market.

Analog hour
The major part of our day is spent in front of screens, and for many of our students this does not challenge
them quite enough to find stimulating activities away from a screen. So we found the need to “disturb”
them and bring them away from their screens, and introduced analog hour, where we ask students to find
an activity that doesn’t depend on using a screen. Most students use this opportunity to play board games
together, an alternative which creates many new relations and conversations between students.

Lunch
Every weekday at 11.30 we all go to lunch. We emphasize to the students that this is mandatory. By this
they will learn to be part of the school activities, be able to interact with others and to be aware of the
importance of eating during the day. All students have a weekly task to clear the table and to put up the
chairs, after lunch.
Work / Play ethic
To create an atmosphere of work and concentration in the workshop we constantly emphasize the
importance of being able to focus on a task in work time. This an invaluable personal skill that students
must possess in order to advance in their learning in the workshop setting. This can be especially
challenging for a learner where the main tool is a gaming pc and you are working with game production.
We make a point of articulating the challenge that procrastination is always just one click away and that
students at all times have to exercise the discipline of separating work from play. In their breaks students
get to do whatever they wish, but we make a point of having them start their work promptly when the
break ends.

Freelance hour
In their individual projects, we have encouraged students to form teams and use each other's’ core skills in
productions. This led to many students disturbing each other in their projects and some had a hard time
finding out what to focus on and when. So we decided to designate a part of our weekly schedule to
freelance work, meaning that students could shop around the workshop, using each other as resources in
their projects. Some of these collaborations developed further into larger projects and became the main
project that they would work with during the week.

Documentation / Presentation
The students summon all the work they have done throughout the week, every Friday morning, and
present their work for the teachers and the other students. They use the blog called Tumblr to document
and track their work and at the same time build a portfolio of their work and knowledge. Since they present
the portfolio every Friday for all the other students, they learn to be able to do simple presentations and to
be able to speak in front of other people.

Teambuilding
Team building is simply playing games against each other in the workshop. Playing multiplayer games in the
workshop has always been a sought activity among the students, this is after all what they spend most of
their free time doing. Playing in the workshop just has the extra perk of being at the same location as your
fellow gamers, making it more exciting than playing at home.
Allocating a time slot for this activity gives students something they can look forward to and also helps to
reinforce the culture of separating work and play.

Internships
We try to screen potential talented students, and send them to internships at game companies in
Copenhagen. Since we are aware of the high level in the industry we cannot send all our students to an
internship. So they need to show talent, stability and commitment for us to be able to cast them for an
internship.

Field trips
Although students are very content with their everyday routines at the workshop, we do aim at having a
few field trips during the year. This is especially to relevant institutions where students can continue their
education, based on their interest in games. Some trips also take us to visit game companies, where
students can get a unique insight into work life in the game industry.
The Case Study
The Gameworkshop is faced with some skepticism from the outside world, although the results are fully in
line with the school’s other workshops, based on the number of young people who subsequently move on
to education.
This means that there is a desire to analyze and document the learning that takes place, the students
background and future plans, the teaching methods and content, the academic, personal and social
benefits, and the students' following choice of education.

The aim of the study is to find the young people's experience of the workshop, thereby enhancing teachers'
attention to the different elements, and ensuring continued development in relation to the different
student types that seek the workshop.

There is also a wish to spread the knowledge of teaching methods and the use of computer games in
teaching, in a context that is not about playing but about collaborating, learning, developing and creating -
in a frame that takes and motivates young people that otherwise have difficulty entering into traditional
education.

The Survey
In the school year 2016-17, a qualitative and quantitative study of the workshop has been conducted.
The qualitative study is based on interviews of students and teachers as well as observations of teaching
situations, and the quantitative study is statistical material concerning the students’ background, duration
of their stay and how they profit.

• 28 students have been enrolled at the workshop for a shorter or longer period.
23 boys and 5 girls, mainly in the age from 16 to 20 years.

• More than 50% of the students have tried to start a secondary education, 20% have not even
completed primary school.

• 2/3 (19 out of 28) have indicated one or more diagnoses upon enrollment.
Mainly autism disorder and anxiety/social phobia, but also other mental difficulties or dyslexia.

• The length of the stay is generally longer than the other workshops at the production school, and
most of the students continue with secondary education.
Some of them in an individual programmes for a period to qualify for further education.

• The success rate is generally higher than the other workshops, despite the fact that the students’
backgrounds are generally more challenging.
12 of the students started a youth education, or a preparatory course.
4 plan to work for the next year, 3 of them have decided which education they want to start later.
5 have changed to another workshop at the school.
4 continue at The Gameworkshop.
3 have dropped out without a specific plan.

Students' experience (summary of interviews).

There have been interviews with 6 students, at the start of the school year and towards the end.

4 of the young have discontinued education, 2 have not been in education.

The reasons for interruption have been very different: Personal problems, too much theory, lack of
motivation, allergy and lack of learning. In common, however, everyone has had the feeling of not fitting in
and not being in touch with neither teachers nor the other students. They have therefore more or less lost
faith in continuing education.

Already at the initial interviews, the social environment in The Gameworkshop is emphasized. There is a
welcoming atmosphere and it is common for students to help each other with tasks and computer
problems.
In addition, it is accepted that you are different. There is room for you to be yourself if you cannot be in a
community, but you will also be involved in the joint projects.

One of the students, who has switched to another workshop to learn something more technical, sums up
his 6-month benefit from The Gameworkshop:
"Professionally, I have learned programming, Photoshop and building IT networks. In addition, I have
improved my skills in terms of planning, order, structure and documentation, and have learned to present
projects. Everything can be used in connection with study, job search and future jobs. I have also worked
with applications and CV in connection with internships.
The teaching has been divided into 2 main elements: Individual assignments with the possibility of
immersion and specialization in subjects that you are particularly interested in or have special talent for,
and joint projects where you work on a task with others. There are also opportunities for different roles in
the joint projects, but it is a matter of solving the task together.”

In addition, the following are highlighted in the interviews:

- The experience that the teaching / learning is driven by sincere interest, both for the teachers and
the students. The relationship between formal learning and leisure interest is more or less
intertwined.

- Discover that game experiences are valuable - that it actually can be used in other contexts - for
example when developing games for educational use.

- You can almost learn what you want. If you are keen to immerse yourself and seek knowledge, you
will be supported and guided through at the level you are at.

- You develop at least as much personally and socially as you do professionally. You get to know
yourself in interaction with others.

- You recognize the connection between effort and dividend (and result).

- The social environment at The Gameworkshop is emphasized as the most important factoramong
the benefits of the workform.

Observations in the Workshop

There is are many good relationship among the students, who teach and instruct each other and share
knowledge so that everyone contributes and benefits from the many different skills found in the student
group.
It is striking that the social environment is something that the young people emphasize. When observing in
the workshop, young people often sit on each computer and are busy with their own tasks. Several people
avoid ordinary conversation, and some sit with headsets to shield off from interference.
Relationships with the teachers and the other young people are almost entirely about the academic
content, and this is the way they build their social contacts.
Teachers have built up some daily and weekly routines that support the community, but it is always
centered around professional content. Even when playing games, the purpose of the activity is defined.

Activities that only have social content make bad memories for many who have felt outside in previous
schooling. When still on the program, for example together with the entire school, the students are
involved in preparing the event and have the opportunity to choose how they can participate. It may be as
a photographer for a school party or as responsible for a gaming lounge.
Thus they learn how they can influence their participation, and as many of the team have the same
problems, they can talk openly about how to tackle them.

Other observations:

- The special educational environment where the participants largely define their own learning goals
and influence on the teaching.

- Teachers are clear in their requirements and expectations in relation to the individual's potential.

- There is recognition and celebration of good productions, as well as the process.

Conclusions
The statistic results, the observations and especially the students’ statements about the benefits of the
teaching in the workshop, gives the teachers and the management team important knowledge in relation
to the future development of the workshop.
It also gives reason to investigate whether, or how, the workform can be spread to other workshops, or to
other schools and institutions.

Teaching based on creating computergames offers unique opportunities to get back on track with
education, for young people who are otherwise hard to motivate. An increasing number of young people
experience loneliness and have no friends besides those they are in contact with via games on the Internet
- and never have met in reality.

The professional entrance to a common area of interest, which is the brand of The Gameworkshop, clearly
gives results beyond the development of technical skills.
The young people feel accepted and recognized for what they can, rather than being confronted with what
they are not particularly good at.
Some make lasting friendships and enjoy being together with other young people. The common domain is
the interest in computer games, which teachers leverage to develop new areas of expertise and challenge
students to engage in new activities.
The academic content, which on the surface seems to be about learning to make computergames, is in fact
aimed at the young people gaining competences to participate in an education program. There is as much
teaching in planning, structure, groupwork and presentation as in different game development programs.
It thus opens up for unlimited perspectives in terms of application in both preparatory and traditional
education