32 LAND LINES GAME TIME Active Learning Puts an Engaging Spin on Education

By Emma Zehner

CARLOS MORALES-SCHECHINGER KNEW HE WAS sleepy students has evolved into and informed doomed. An official in Mexico’s ministry for urban a variety of educational games, including a development, he was slated to speak at a multiday organized game called GIROS. Taking its conference in San Luis Potosí immediately name from the Spanish for both “transaction” following a fully programmed morning and large and “turning around,” which captures the notion lunch. With the students in front of him doing of the interdependencies of land markets, GIROS little to fight an onslaught of yawns, Morales had was designed by Martim Smolka, director of the to get creative. program on Latin America and the Caribbean at On a whim, he decided to forgo his formal the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and en- lecture on Mexico’s national urban land policy. hanced in collaboration with Morales, now a Instead, he asked a student in the front of the member of the Lincoln Institute’s teaching room if he could buy the chair the student was faculty. GIROS has been played well over 150 sitting on, offering a bill from his pocket times and inspired spinoffs in most of Latin as payment. America, and in the Netherlands, Taiwan, Ghana, After some initial confusion, the student Kenya, the Philippines, and other countries. accepted. Morales then started auctioning off Participants have ranged from urban planning the seat. He spoke in a low voice to illustrate its students to high-level public officials. locational advantage, increasing demand. Soon GIROS requires few props. Smolka and he had the students invested in both his pres- Morales developed a basic game board with entation and that suddenly invaluable piece of color-coded pieces used to map the evolution of furniture. By the end of the session, equipped an imaginary . Participants divide into teams, only with standard classroom objects, he had wearing hats to indicate roles like government brought to life the processes of land price officials, NGOs, different classes of citizens, and determination, densification, and other phenom- developers. During the first rounds, players—as- ena related to the notoriously complex and often signed “hidden agendas” to simulate the opaque misrepresented topic of urban land markets. nature of land markets—negotiate and trade That was 30 years ago. Over the decades plots in a market with little regulation. Halfway since, Morales’s spontaneous attempt to engage through play, the “government” introduces

Credit: Vektorista/iStock.

OCTOBER 2019 33 regulations such as high-density zones, altering Institute. “The game is one example of this.” the city’s development trajectory. When each Games are a unique and useful pedagogical round concludes or when a theoretically signifi- tool for a number of reasons, according to Vue. cant phenomenon occurs as the result of a They encourage action, interactivity, and transaction, the students take off their hats to innovative thinking in ways that traditional discuss what happened and why. classroom approaches don’t. Vue emphasizes Depending on the decisions players make, that games have the potential to teach not just the game can take many forms. But at least two content, but also more applicable problem- takeaways, evident since the game’s origins, solving skills. They are a flexible tool, allowing always emerge. The first is that land value is not students to provide feedback and input in real intrinsic, but is instead shaped by factors time and facilitators to contribute their own including transportation costs, regula- knowledge and guidance along the way. tions, taxation, and other externalities. The Giovanni Pérez Macías, a lawyer who first second takeaway, which the Lincoln Institute is played GIROS in 2007 as part of a three-month fully embracing as part of its current instruction- Lincoln Institute land policy course in Panama, al design work, is that games are a seriously sees the ability of the instructor to change the important part of land policy education. direction GIROS takes as one of this game’s GIROS is just one of the Lincoln Institute’s strengths. “If Carlos sees that a certain group growing suite of educational games and interac- needs to learn a specific issue in urban develop- tive tools. While these tools are primarily used in ment or land policy, he can lead the game [in a the Institute’s courses in Latin America, active way that teaches] that issue,” he says. learning increasingly plays a role in all its Whatever the outcome, Morales explained in educational offerings. “In terms of broader a video about the game produced by Erasmus learning design, we really want to shift the University Rotterdam, students must understand balance of our in-person courses away from their own influence. “If you win the game, you presentations and lectures and toward more have to explain why,” he said. “If you aren’t able active learning activities,” said Ge Vue, associate [to explain why you won], you lose points. The director of Learning Design at the Lincoln main point is not winning or losing, it is learning.”

Participants in a Lincoln Institute of Land Policy course in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, play a round of GIROS with the help of Carlos Morales-Schechinger (seated, left). The teams wear hats to indicate their roles. Credit: Anne Hazel.

34 LAND LINES Teaching with Games about land markets. Smolka explained that part of the inspiration for GIROS came from a game Popular games that invite players to take on the that had been conceived in Bogotá to teach land role of developer or city planner are a familiar value capture principles but suffered from this part of the cultural landscape. Monopoly was same problem: “You lose the most important created in 1903 by Henry George aficionado part of the conversation. The rationality of the Elizabeth Magie, then bought by the Parker agents must affect land use and land values.” Brothers in the 1930s and transformed into the Smolka is not alone in his assessment. In an capitalist game known around the world today. article on mainstream city-building games, More modern digital games like SimCity, in which Bradley Bereitschaft, assistant professor of players build and manage urban areas, and geography at the University of Nebraska, wrote, Minecraft, which places players in an undevel- “the limitations and inaccuracies of these oped landscape with the tools they need to build games limit their utility in understanding and other structures, have kept the complex urban processes” (Bereitschaft 2016). tradition going. In fact, it was that type of academic unease that These games overlap with and influence the led to the development of so-called “serious urban planning world—“I wouldn’t be where I am games” beginning in the 1960s. Clark C. Abt, a today without SimCity,” an official with the German educator and engineer, put a name to National Association of City Transportation the emerging trend in his 1970 book Serious Officials told the Los Angeles Times for a 30th Games. Such games, he wrote, “have an explicit anniversary article on the game (Roy 2019)— and carefully thought-out educational purpose but they don’t always reflect the realities of and are not intended to be played primarily for urban development. amusement. This does not mean that serious In the case of Monopoly, for instance, Smolka games are not, or should not be, entertaining” points to the fact that land values don’t vary with (Abt 1970). the behavior of the players as an example of how Many of the early urban planning games the iconic board game reinforces misconceptions were “products of local needs,” according to

OCTOBER 2019 35 Eszter Tóth, a PhD student at HafenCity Universi- Why Play Is Good for Planners ty Hamberg who conducts research in the field of children’s participation in urban planning (Tóth Paulo Sandroni, an economist and now retired 2015). Often developed by universities at the professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in behest of local municipalities, these games were São Paulo, Brazil, who has collaborated with the typically played only a couple of times and never Lincoln Institute and developed simulators and published. One game that did have a longer shelf games of his own, believes games are particular- life—and has been cited by some as the origin of ly useful for teaching urban planners. simulation gaming, which imitates real-life “Urban planners in general are decision situations—was Metropolis. Richard Duke, a makers, and a game gives them the opportunity professor at the , designed to practice and to play in an arena of trade-offs; that simulation in 1966 to help the Lansing City if I want more of X, I will have less of Y,” Sandroni Council work through a complex budgeting said. “Urban planners deal with a whole city, a process. very complex organism. In other professions Soon after, Alan Feldt, a professor of urban there are limitations because they deal with and at Cornell who would later more specific subjects, but games can be become one of Duke’s collaborators, designed an adapted to any situation that requires choosing urban planning board game specifically intended different ways to solve a problem.” for use in higher education. The Community Land “You can face in real time, even if simplified, Use Game (CLUG) centered around a board with the same questions and same problems that the 196 one-inch squares. Over the course of 20 real decision makers do in their professional hours, five teams made up of two or three lives,” Pérez Macías said. students each from his undergraduate and The physical aspect of games like GIROS may graduate regional planning courses aimed to be particularly useful for urban planners, who are build factories, stores, and residences in relation more physical by nature of their interest in the to transportation, resources, and utilities with design of the built environment, said Daphne the goal of maximizing land value. Kenyon, resident fellow in tax policy at the A 1969 Cornell Daily Sun article on Feldt’s Lincoln Institute. Kenyon helped facilitate the game, which by then had been used as a teaching play of PLUS, a condensed spinoff of GIROS, at aid in Mexico, Germany, Israel, and England, the national American Planning Association weighed in on the new trend: “Playing with blocks conference in April 2019. Over the course of the used to be considered appropriate behavior for APA session, planners moved between chairs and kindergarteners, but today’s modern teaching tables that represented housing units and plots theory is turning such former juvenile pastimes of land. At the conclusion of the first round, when into accepted university techniques.” a lack of government intervention had led the players who were in the role of developers to “Urban planners in general are decision overproduce for the rich and underproduce for makers, and a game gives them the the poor, a group of professionally dressed real-life planners huddled together on the floor opportunity to practice and to play in an in an effort to signify their homelessness. Vue arena of trade-offs: If I want more of X, explains that students’ physical interaction with I will have less of Y . . . games can be adapted a game or the creation of new objects provides to any situation that requires choosing more options to represent their thinking and communicate the reasoning behind their actions. different ways to solve a problem.”

36 LAND LINES Left: Games like this one, designed by Amsterdam-based Play the City, can help city leaders make decisions. Credit: Play the City. Right: A still from SimCity, a popular digital city-building simulation. Credit: Paul Hameteman/Flickr CC BY 2.0.

Role-playing games like GIROS also help Play the City, an Amsterdam-based firm students inhabit perspectives they might not whose tagline is “serious gaming for smart and otherwise, says Kenyon, who plans to use a social cities,” believes gaming has the potential condensed version of the game in an economics to replace traditional formats of civic engage- course she teaches at Brandeis University. ment. The company designs physical games Kenyon thinks the game might challenge some of tailored to specific cities that bring stakeholders her students’ assumptions by forcing them to see together to address issues including affordable the challenges that developers, in particular, can housing, urban expansion, climate change, and face in city-building scenarios. participatory design. Play the City is also The Lincoln Institute’s games are also part of committed to documenting games that improve a larger response to a persistent trend: Many city making, and maintains a database that urban planning master’s programs, whether in includes GIROS. the United States or Latin America, offer limited or no instruction in urban economics and property taxation as part of their core curricu- The Latin America Context lum. Instead, they focus more narrowly on and the physical nature of cities. Smolka The Lincoln Institute currently uses GIROS and and others see games and other active learning other games primarily in Latin America, where techniques as a way to fill this gap. As Smolka the majority of the organization’s courses— explained, “GIROS is designed to teach the kind which focus on formal and informal urban land of professional who is averse to equations or markets, land value capture, urban redevelop- formulas the fundamentals of how land prices ment projects, and other related topics—are are determined and how norms and regulations offered. While some local governments in the affect public revenues.” region have embraced the role of games in the In the past few decades, as municipalities planning process, academics have traditionally have increasingly rejected top-down planning been less willing to use games in university processes, serious games have become an classrooms. increasingly popular tool to aid public processes Sandroni thinks that hesitancy can be and help leaders think through real scenarios attributed to a lack of time, financing, and with real data. exposure to these teaching aids. He first started

OCTOBER 2019 37 Many urban planning master’s programs, whether in the United States or Latin America, offer limited or no instruction in urban economics and property taxation as part of their core curriculum, instead focusing more narrowly on urban design and the physical nature of cities. Games and other active learning techniques are a way to fill this gap.

experimenting with using games in his class- Gislene Pereira, a professor in architecture room in the 1990s. He noticed that students and urban planning at the Federal University of were always playing cards between classes, so Paraná who first saw GIROS in 2009 in Caracas, he developed two card games of his own, says she appreciated that it allowed partici- bringing them into the formal setting of the pants “to think with the logic of each agent of classroom. Since 1999, he has run O Jogo da the city”—literally wearing many hats. She has Economia Brasileira (Game of the Brazilian since helped to oversee the development of a Economy), a national tournament in which simplified version for use in courses for archi- economics students from across the country tecture and urbanism students and in training compete and gain an understanding of exchange for city councilors on land policies, tax, and rates, inflation, foreign debt, and other concepts. non-tax instruments. By supporting teachers and modeling the use of The appetite for games has grown in Latin games in the classroom, Sandroni said, “the America, a trend that was confirmed, at least Lincoln Institute is really pioneering the use of anecdotally, by a weeklong course put on by the games in education in Latin America.” Lincoln Institute in Guatemala in early 2019. The Pérez Macías thinks the key to changing the course focused on using tools like games and cultural resistance toward games is to provide tribunals, crosswords, and videos to teach land professional development opportunities so market and policy issues to urban planners (see teachers can experience the games for them- sidebar). As part of the application process, selves. At least that’s how it worked for him, he applicants—some of whom had attended Lincoln said. After taking his first Lincoln Institute Institute courses in the past—had to describe a course, where he was exposed to most of the tool they were already using in their classrooms. Institute’s games that had been developed to Of the 78 applications the Institute received, 34 date, Pérez Macías started taking additional said they used some type of game in their courses in gamification and became a self- courses, with others citing the use of case studies, described gamification practitioner, incorporat- simulations, videos, and theater assignments. ing spinoffs of GIROS into his own courses. He is “We are seeing much more interest than we now using a methodology called LEGO Serious thought,” said Enrique Silva, director of Interna- Play that is generally used to facilitate meetings tional and Institute-Wide Initiatives at the and communication in corporate settings, but Lincoln Institute. “In Guatemala, we saw that which Pérez Macías has adapted as a tool to there is an audience and a willingness [for active teach urban issues, like participatory design and learning tools], and most importantly a demand. negotiation and agreement building between There was a sense that people would love to be urban stakeholders. more engaged.”

38 LAND LINES ACTIVE LEARNING AT LINCOLN

Ge Vue, associate director of Learning Design at the Cartoons Lincoln Institute, said he encourages those who teach Produced by the Lincoln Institute and Brazil’s to think about active learning no matter what tool Ministry of Cities, Jose K. Tastro y las Directrices para they’re using: “You can insert instances of active el Catastro Territorial Multifinalitario represents learning in a simple scenario statement in a common situations faced by municipal cadaster PowerPoint [just as you might] in a more elaborate, employees as they implement land information multiday game.” In addition to games such as those systems to meet the needs of the public and private described in this article, the Lincoln Institute employs sectors. A second cartoon, Jacinto Bené Fício and the a variety of student-centered, participatory active Property Tax, tells the story of two cities, one with a learning tools, including: well developed property tax system and the other with a poorly developed system. Case Studies One of the Lincoln Institute’s newer active learning Crossword Puzzles approaches is the use of case studies in the The crossword puzzle, un juego de palabras, is used classroom. Over the past year, for example, the to help students review vocabulary and concepts and Lincoln Institute redesigned a conventional lecture on offers a less intimidating alternative to drill-based public-private partnerships into a teaching case review techniques. The Lincoln Institute’s new study on the financing of Millennium Park in Chicago. crossword puzzle on informal markets asks readers The case study, which prompts critical thinking and to come up with words based on clues such as “who interaction, was then used in a municipal finance bears the burden of a charge to land values.” executive education course in collaboration with the University of Chicago Harris School of .

Tribunals/Debates During a Lincoln Institute tribunal session, participants are given a particular proposition, with half of the group required to conduct research and argue in favor, and the other half against. The activity culminates with presentations, questions from other students in the course, and the final verdict of a pre-assigned “judge.”

Theater Productions/Videos Palo Alto: Un Sistema Economica is a dramatic satire on political economy adapted to the Latin American context. It is based on the 1934 theater production of The Shovelcrats: A Satire on the Illusional Theory of Political Economy by the Schalkenbach Foundation and produced by the Colombia-based Teatro Vreve for use in Lincoln Institute courses. In recent years, teachers have provided students with a version of the script that excludes the final scene, asking students Scenes from Jacinto Bené Fício and the Property Tax, which includes a character to write an ending. modeled after Lincoln Institute program director and instructor Martim Smolka. Credit: Ministry of Cities of Brazil, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

OCTOBER 2019 39 Looking Ahead act globally.” Serious games are one approach, but to reach a diverse audience, Vue explains the The success of GIROS and other games in Latin Lincoln Institute needs to expand its palette of America has paved the way for the Lincoln teaching strategies. Institute to think more strategically and broadly In a sense, he believes the Lincoln Institute’s about its pedagogical approach. “We started by use of games is an active learning experiment in thinking that if people acquired knowledge and and of itself. “I am hoping that we can improve skills about pressing global challenges and the current designs of our games each time we issues and how to address them through land use them,” Vue said. “It doesn’t mean you make a policy, they would make good choices, implement dramatic change in the rules, instead [it’s] good projects, and make the best use of limited around ensuring that a range of participants can resources to improve the quality of life in the learn and succeed. Just because we design a community,” Vue explained. “With games, we’ve game, doesn’t mean it’s done.” become more explicit about critical thinking skills like problem solving, social skills like teamwork and collaboration, and ethical behavior of the Emma Zehner is communications and publications editor different interest groups that are crucial to at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. navigating local and global challenges in the real world.” Moving forward, Vue hopes to roll out active learning approaches more consistently in the other regions where the Lincoln Institute offers courses and to encourage faculty to rethink the design of conventional courses, lectures, and REFERENCES presentations. The Learning Design program at the Lincoln Institute is embarking on new Abt, Clark C. 1970. Serious Games. New York, NY: Viking multimedia projects, including a case study on Press. equitable revitalization in Cleveland that will Bereitschaft, Bradley. 2016. “Gods of the City? Reflecting be used in courses as far afield as Taiwan, and on City Building Games as an Early Introduction to Urban hopes to make many of its tools available on Systems.” Journal of Geography. 115 (2): 51-60. https:// an e-learning platform. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00221341.2015. “As the Lincoln Institute thinks about its 1070366. educational approach, the future may be less Play the City. “Games for Cities Database.” http:// about what’s new, and more about how instruc- gamesforcities.com/database/.

tors can be most effective at tackling a persistent Roy, Jessica. 2019. “From Video Game to Day Job: How learning challenge,” Vue said. “The Lincoln ‘SimCity’ Inspired a Generation of City Planners.” Los Institute operates on a global stage because Angeles Times. March 5. https://www.latimes.com/ issues like climate change cross political and business/technology/la-fi-tn-simcity-inspired-urban- geographical boundaries and require change in planners-20190305-story.html.

strategic thinking and ethical behaviors. Through Tóth, Eszter. 2014. “Potential of Games in the Field of well-designed learning experiences that get Urban Planning.” In New Perspectives in Game Studies: people to collaborate, converse, teach, and learn Proceedings of the Central and Eastern European Game with others who are different from them, people Studies Conference Brno 2014 ed. Tomáš Bártek, Jan tend to be more humbled about what they don’t Miškov, Jaroslav Švelch, 71-91. Brno, Czech Republic: know, more open to different perspectives, and Masaryk University. https://www.researchgate.net/ more likely to be inspired and feel supported to publication/311233864_Potential_of_Games_in_the_ Field_of_Urban_Planning.

40 LAND LINES