Interpersonal

The Context

Working in a small team, we were tasked to design and develop an educational board game, complete with trivia cards, rules, a game board, and a design document that includes a context of use and rationale. Our game, Compromising Positions, designed for an audience over the age of seventeen, is dedicated to presenting potentially new information and verifying/reinforcing existing knowledge of topics associated with sexual wellness. To win the game, players roll their way through relevant situations that could potentially compromise their sexual health, and must choose, identify, or describe the most accurate and/or best course of action to take.

Demonstrating the Competency

Our group organized weekly meetings, but also worked interdependently utilizing our talents and experience to contribute to the success of the team’s objectives.

• All Teammates, Collaboration: Discussed the game’s concept, and determined the educational and visual design, wrote the rules and trivia question. Communicated ideas via email and used a wiki to contribute to the design documents.
• Teammate 1, Scribe: Lead the search for competing products and wrote a competing product analysis.
• Teammate 2, Graphic Artist: Created all the graphics, including the game board and game box.
• Teammate 3, Content Researcher: Interviewed the subject matter expert (SME), and collected addition data used in trivia cards.

The team sought advice and guidance from our instructor and subject matter expert (SME).

• Dr. Bernie Dodge, EDTEC 670 Instructor: Organized team-advising sessions, went over the project scope, and answered inquires about how to write trivia questions.
• Director of the Peer Health Educators (PHE), SME: Provided information about the most requested topics on sexual health, such as contraceptives and STDs, and included a series of handouts the PHEs routinely distribute.

The Unexpected

Each team member had a unique upbringing regarding the topic of sexual wellness. These experiences impacted the design scope, such as the environment in which the game should be played, facilitations of the game, and the context. One team member went to a same sex high school and college and was never formally taught this information, another member grew up in a very liberal household, while the third member’s family followed the philosophy, “don’t ask, don’t tell”.

It is not surprising that working in such a diverse group led to frustrations and days of unmet expectations as the group’s dynamics were being discovered. Specifically, one team member was confronted when they did not meet their individual deliverable. As a group, we found that by reviewing our individual contributions and the team’s expectations, we were able to avoid similar scenarios later in the design process.

Personal Outcomes

My successful collaboration designing and developing the board game demonstrates my capabilities to:

• Communicate constructively, demonstrate active listening, and work as an effective participant to meet project objectives. As a team player, I cared about the team members, the team as a whole, and the work produced.
• Maintain a flexible environment by adapting to the needs of my teammates, compromising, and reprioritizing production when needed.
• Uphold my responsibilities by following through on my assignments and delivering work that meets or exceeds exceptions.