Pedagogical analysis

We here provide a description of how the learning activity will influence the learning of the participants.

Goal Setting

The Expedition Mundus Online is a team game where students collaborate to answer research questions and publish them. Each correct question gets a point. The team with the highest points wins. There is a set time for running the game.

Activity Design

The activity is designed based on an existing educational game that emphasizes curiosity and enquiry as a means of learning and the process of forming knowledge rather than pre-knowledge of actual facts. It is based on a fictional world, an equalizer amongst participants and has different levels of cognitive difficulty.

• Collaboration

Each member of the team is provided with only a partial knowledge of the facts needed to answer any given question, so the leaner needs to collaborate to combine these to answer the questions.

Teams are allowed to read each other’s published results in order to inform their own answers.

• Online Communication

There are three different modes of online communication the teams get assigned from at the start of the game. Each team is confined to their mode for the duration of the game, allowing for a variety of approaches to using each mode. 

Evaluation

The learner (and her/his team) is evaluated on the basis of "scientific knowledge" about Mundus after each question is answered. The evaluation allows the learner to publish the results and move on to the next question.

Feedback

Feedback on "scientific knowledge" is provided immediately after the team answers a question. The team is immediately notified if the answer is correct or not by the teacher online.

Feedback on their reflections on collaborative learning and different modes of communication is provided in a summing up session by the teacher.

Reflection

The teams reflect on the collaboration through a SWOT analysis of the different communication modes that are published on the activity website. This provides the teacher with useful information about the activity and is the basis for the summing up discussion with the learners.