SimU 2007 - University of Arkansas

On September 7, the University of Arkansas hosted a significant conference at the Reynolds Center of Enterprise Development, addressing the challenges and opportunities for higher education that are provided by increasing numbers of so-called “millennial students”. These students come to the university with extensive experience in digital gaming, including video games, computer-based role playing games, and massive multiplayer on-line games.

The conference brought together thought leaders and members of the UA Community to develop a national road map of innovative approaches to the challenges and opportunities provided by the growing wave of millennial students in higher education. These students are entering the university with new skill sets developed from extensive gaming and on-line social networking and they have different attitudes and expectations for higher education. Universities need to understand the challenges and opportunities provided by these students and how to effectively and aggressively respond.

National leaders in game development, education and gaming and the computer industry joined together on the University of Arkansas campus at the Reynolds Center for Enterprise Development to provide an exciting new road map responding to these new challenges and opportunities. A panel of students provided input into possible curriculum frameworks and methods.

As a result of their experiences, students who will be entering higher education in the next decade bring new skills and new challenges to which the university community must be more responsive. One study reports that the average entering student in the next decade will have spent many thousands of hours playing video/computer games. While gaming is seen by some as frivolous or even a destructive activity, recent research and scholarship, indicates, instead, that students are, in fact, learning valuable skills. These include such skills as contextual bridging, high time-on-task, motivation and goal orientation, and collaborative and teaming skills. The 2006 Federation of American Scientists- National Science Foundation sponsored Summit on Educational Gaming emphasizes that education at all levels must recognize and aggressively respond to this new situation.

Speakers addressed the following topics:

• What skill sets have extensive gaming developed in individuals now entering higher education?
• How should higher education pedagogy respond to these new capabilities and expectations (new courses, new techniques, new approaches)?
• How will the combination of gaming experience and new educational responses better prepare the students for the workplace of the 21st century?