Playing Games-

The focus of this blog has frequently been on the interaction of technology and the learning styles of Millennials. With good reason- so much of what defines this generation comes from growing up with unprecedented access to technology: smart phones, the internet, and email all have occurred within the last twenty years. Nonetheless, there are still ways to engage with these students using something as simple as a good old-fashioned board game. In this instance, the board game was Settlers or Catan and the class was International Business Transactions.

My IBT class is the smallest class I have all year – 5 students are enrolled. While I would have wished for a larger class size, there are some benefits to my small class. For me (other than the reduced grading time at the end of the semester) the biggest plus is that I get to engage my students on a much more personal level. It also gives me the freedom to experiment. So, although we are only three weeks into the semester, I have already played Jeopardy, shows them clips from the West Wing and, played Settlers of Catan.

For those of you who don’t know, Settlers of Catan is a board game that was created in 1995 by the German game maker Klaus Teuber. It has been called the Monopoly of this generation by the Washington Post and is reportedly played by millions world-wide, including “the Silicon Valley” set. The Washington Post video accompanying the article goes into details about the basics of the game; suffice it to say that the object of the game is to collect points by building roads settlements and cities. Each of these objects requires certain resources which (depending on the role of the dice) you may or may not have. As a result, trading resources with other players is often a crucial component of the game.

I have been addicted to this game since I was first introduced to it, a little over a year ago. As I was preparing for my IBT section on international trade, the idea of trying to use Settlers to teach some of the basic concepts appealed to me.
When I describe IBT to my students on the first day, I compare it a buffet. Over the fourteen weeks that I teach them, they are exposed to a wide curricular variety: securities law; corporate law; intellectual property (and a number of other topics) all from the perspective of a transnational environment. As a result, we never delve too deeply into any one substantive area, but rather sample a variety of issues with transnational law as our unifying theme.

So it is with trade. International trade is a foundational course in most international law curriculums. It is usually taught as a one semester, three-credit course. At WVU College of Law, Alison Peck teaches our International Trade class. Needless to say, trying to cover a semester’s worth of ideas in one week will not be successful – at most I can fly by and highlight the basic concepts. To me, Settlers of Catan was the best way to do it.

Before class, I had my students do two things: do their readings for the week and watch a youtube video on the basics of Settlers of Catan. When we first started playing, we went a couple of rounds, playing as you would normally play (except the Robber, was not used). Also, instead of being colors, the players were countries- I used Thailand, India, Jamaica and the United States. Then, after the students had a feel for the game, we added some custom-made additions. Now, every time the students rolled a seven (the common prompt for a Robber), they would pull from a pile of newly created situations. Some examples:

• “Thailand and India have entered into a trade agreement. They now sell ore to each other at half-price;”

• “All countries now recognize GATT;”

• “War has broken out between America and Thailand! No trade may occur between these two countries.”

Each of these scenarios impacted who could trade with whom and how trading with one person affected trade with someone else. I also added currency with various rates, allowing the students to buy resources instead of simply trading them (there is no money in the basic Settlers game).

The next class, we had a discussion about what take-away points that they could draw from Settlers and apply to international trade. The students had many insightful comments and discussed the concepts of trade succinctly and with a grasp of the basics.

So here are the things that I learned from the experience:

Keep it simple:

If you want to have the students involved playing a game, make the rules simple enough for them to pick up quickly. (I tried playing a version of Settlers last spring but I changed too many of the rules and it became confusing).

Keep it fun but not too fun:

I noticed that when we didn’t discuss the concepts and instead just focused on the game, the students got caught up in the competitiveness of it all. However, when I interjected with comments or applied instructions; the students took a moment to reflect on how what they were doing applied to what they had been reading.

Technology can breed isolation, games can breed community:

As I mentioned in a previous post, my practice is to ban laptops in my largest class. In my smaller classes (such as IBT) I feel more comfortable allowing to students to have them. Still even in these smaller classes I find that when students use their laptops, even to simply take down notes, they tend to become siloed in their typing. In contrast, playing Settlers required the students to interact and engage with each other.

The feedback I’ve received from my students has also been positive. One student said “I didn’t understand some of the concepts the book was trying to illustrate between laissez-faire and protectionism until I played the game.” To me, that makes it a game worth playing.