Dr Murphy Faculty Instructor Narrative

Dr. Murphy is an associate professor at an Australian university with a specialty in Linguistics. Dr. Murphy has achieved recognition for excellence in teaching and has received awards for innovation, teaching and research. In addition to her doctorate, she holds a graduate certificate in education and has training in pedagogy. Her position at the university is language specialist. She helps hundreds of ‘English as a second language’ (ESL) students each semester. Although a self-described avid user of technology, she is not an enthusiastic up taker of new applications, unless there is a “clear and unique proposition that that software offers.” She may have described herself as a “gamer” when she was younger, however she lost interest when the newer 3D games hit the market. She prefers the classic puzzle and logic type games, but admits to playing Pokemon Go on the advice of her students, mainly to keep informed of the trending popular games.

Decision. True to Dr. Murphy’s belief that technology should only be used when

necessary, she implemented DGBL in answer to an educational dilemma. She explained, “I had a problem, I had 500 kids and one of me.” She also was looking for a way to engage students outside of the classroom and still provide a necessary auditory component. It was also important to her to replicate what she would do in a one-on-one session with the student. She stated, “What they clearly needed was a lot of practice and exposure and repetitive practice on a number of basic linguistic points, particularly vocabulary of listening skills and various sorts of things like that.” Dr. Murphy foresaw the game as an efficient means to meet each criterion.

Dr. Murphy described many of the game attributes she incorporated that allowed her to deliver the lessons in a “fun” way. She was very enthusiastic in describing the game and stressed the need to make the game fun and at times even shocking. She spent time going through DGBL literature and was intrigued by the research that shown timing a response is a motivator. Thus, she incorporated timed play in the game. She also discovered that personalization of the game through using avatars and placing the player in circumstances that they would encounter in real world situations were very useful game characteristics that helped to meet the specified learning objectives. She based her games on her own experience and what she felt kept her engaged when playing a game, “the things that I know work for me,” she rationalized. Additionally, she looked at successful game models that people were willing to spend money on. Although many of the games would not have met her needs, she was delighted that “it gave [her] enough to brainstorm on.”

Time management strategies. Dr. Murphy performs all the duties of a senior lecturer,

thus in addition to teaching face-to-face and online courses she holds committee appointments, advises students and conducts research. Her strategy to implement the game was to use academic time set aside for online teaching for the game development. Dr. Murphy is very coconscious of her time commitments and sets “very realistic time lines for things.” She has been able to find a balance between her work, parenting and hobbies. Drawing well-established boundaries between work and her private life, she believes that time management should be conducted to suit your individual needs. One strategy that she employs is that she will not respond to e-mails on the weekend, “nonnegotiable”.

Developing the game was a time consuming venture for Dr. Murphy. However, she found it enjoyable and considered it as a hobby as well. As such, she allowed it to cross into her off

work hours. Dr. Murphy “did the sort of creative lazing around work at home,” discussing ideas with her family members and friends. She finds that to be the “more relaxed brainstorming time.” Therefore, even though it was time consuming, “it’s a hobby, so it’s not a problem” she joked. However, she was serious in saying that the consistent seeking out of efficiencies can kill creativity and creative time isn’t always time purposefully set aside. “You know you have lots of small moments where you just get an idea and inspirations just jump into your head.”

Dr. Murphy considers herself to be very well organized. At work she block off time to accomplish specific tasks and believes that helps to make more efficient use of her time. When you give yourself a certain amount of time to do something, you become more focused on that effort. She also is realistic about how much one person can do and admits, “I say no to people.” If she is asked to participate in a meeting and it conflicts with time that she has blocked for other tasks, she will decline. Firmly stating, “too bad, not negotiable.”

She applies the same appreciation for her time to the time of her students. Hence, the game should serve a purpose and not waste people’s time. One of the pros for game based learning is that although some may think it needs to be proper, she feels it needs to be fun. However, it must also “engage quickly and with focus.” The game she designed could be

effective in 15 minutes a day for two weeks. She describes a good game as something “quick and quite powerful.” A good educational game designer will have an appreciation for what people need.

Support. Dr. Murphy describes her institution as being innovative and felt supported by

the administration. She was part of an international innovative award that helped fund the first year of the DGBL project. She was also the recipient of an internal grant that also supplemented the project. Dr. Murphy was the sole content expert and designer of the game, however the

funding enabled her to out-source the coding of the game. Words of caution came as she described that working this way can be very expensive and she was less than satisfied working with the coders. In fact, she is currently learning coding so that she can continue to create games without relying on others and having the expense. Another word of caution came when talking about the platform on which you develop your game. She advises use of a “very well established and future proof script.”

Dr. Murphy does not have a network of peers at her institution that are involved in DGBL, however she is currently involving the students in educational game designing. The student-developed games are more puzzles based and not similar to the action-script flash games that she has developed. Dr. Murphy advises not to make games, unless it’s absolutely necessary, but admits she says that only because it is her stand on the use of all technology. Appendix F, Tables F15-F17 provide in vivo evidence for Dr. Murphy’s narrative.