It Takes A Village: a Collaborative Online Game Supporting Inclusive Teaching and Learning of STEM

Modern engineering, in solving society's pressing problems, requires collaboration. In addition to employing multi-disciplinary teams of engineers, the needs of a diverse set of stakeholders also must be considered. It is therefore essential that engineering students learn to value and consider diverse perspectives on an engineering problem, realizing that there is not necessarily just one right answer. The iSTEAM project has been addressing this need by creating and running a series of workshops for faculty that focus on invitational rhetoric in inclusive STEM teaching. Participating faculty engage with readings and videos, do gamified activities to make their own classes more inclusive, and meet weekly (over 5 weeks) for discussion. To drive home the need for inclusion and collaboration, participants also play a collaborative online game that the iSTEAM team developed to emphasize the importance of including people with diverse skill sets and perspectives. With a Creative Commons license, participants in the workshops are also encouraged to consider how they might use the game in their own classrooms. This paper describes the game, its premise, and its underlying themes. It further explains how the game can be used in workshops and other educational settings. Results of pilot tests further demonstrate the benefits of using this game in an educational context.