Jan Kyhnau and Charlotte Bruun, University College of Northern Denmark (UCN).
Doing Good Business Game
Enhancing Sustainable Business Model Teaching through RPL and Game-based Processes.
Presenting a best practice case on how to use Game-based and Reflective Practice-based Learning as a combined approach to Sustainable Business Model Teaching.
The presentation includes an introduction to the Doing Good Business Game (Kyhnau, 2022) which is based on the Triple Layered BMC (Joyce & Paquin, 2016).
Reflective Practice-Based Learning (RPL)
RPL is UCN’s defining learning approach. It forms the base of all study programmes in a belief that reflection bridges the gap between theory and practice. Reflective Practice-based Learning has three concepts at its core:
Experiences are crucial in the learning process, partly because personal here-and-now experience places the abstract in a context and makes sense of it.
Thinking is seeking out and investigating circumstances that may contribute to qualify actions.
Action which may be experimenting and testing various possible solutions.
RPL Principles
6 fundamental principles create favourable conditions for RPL and initiate teaching and learning activities that come close to real life.
Game-based Learning
The fundamental ideas of RPL as the real world calling for reflection before action can be replicated in a game setting. However, developing games that honour this can be demanding.
When designing a learning game, it is important to create a meaningful coherence between learning principles and playing techniques.
Game design must be developed through techniques that promote not just short-term motivation, but instead in-depth learning that connects theory and practice through the reflection process
(Gyldendahl, 2023)
The Doing Good Business Game (DGBG)
The DGBG is based on the Triple Layered BMC (TLBMC) by Joyce & Paquin, 2016.
Using Reflective Practice-based Learning principles, the game is structured as an exemplary process that inspires and transforms learning into value creating Sustainable BM design. To help students reflect on dynamics of the real world, the concept of Doing Good Business (Bruun, 2021) is added as an extra dimension.
The purpose of the game is to give the players better prerequisites for developing sustainable business models, and to help them draft a sustainable business model for a real life case company.
Download the Abstract
Download the Teaching Forum poster abstract “Enhancing Sustainable Business Model Teaching through RPL and Game-based Processes” (Kyhnau & Bruun, 2023) including literature references.
How are the RPL concepts and principals put into play?
Overall, the game bridges the gap between theory and practice by combining RPL's three core concepts; Experience, Thinking and Action, and thus creates applicability in the real world. Especially, the following basic principles for RPL are put into play:
1. Experiences – based on a real life case company, preferably a company the participants have good knowledge of and experience with.
2. Appropriate Disturbances – uses Task Cards that challenge the participants and Reflection Cards with leg spans that provoke reflection and innovation.
3. Exploration – the Sustainable Business Model teaching is organised as game-based and scenario-based exploration close to practice.
4. The Good Example – based on the state-of-the-art article on the TLBMC which uses the well known Nespresso BMC case as an example. The game uses this as an exemplary starting point for the participants' own TLBMC design work.
5. Collaboration – the game has several elements so that the lecturer and the students can structure alternative game processes in collaboration.
6. Dialogue – the game creates spaces for reflective discussion and meaningful dialogue about the learning process, especially in connection with the Assessment Rounds and the students' presentations.
The Game Structure and Elements
The game is divided into three parts, an introductory part (PROFIT) and two sustainability parts (PLANET and PEOPLE). The first part, Doing Good Business (PROFIT), is preparatory to be able to play the two actual game parts: Doing Good for PLANET and Doing Good for PEOPLE.
The PLANET game and the PEOPLE game each have three rounds: A. The Canvas Round, B. The Assessment Round, C. The Global Goals Round.
Feedback on the DGBG
from a Ph.D. Candidate
Hear the feedback from Amélie Gabriagues, Ph.D. Candidate at Paris-Dauphine University after the DGBG round table game session at the Business Model Conference 2022 in Lille (France).
DGBG in International Collaboration
In collaboration with the BM research group at Saxion University (Netherlands), the DGBG has been tested in various contexts, i.a. in a circular BM workshop with Ph.D. students from Amrita University (India) facilitated by Thierry Tartarin, Saxion BM research group.
The collaboration between UCN and Saxion has led to the inclusion of the DGBG in Saxion's Business Model Lab together with other Sustainable BM tools from UCN. Students from UCN will therefore also have access to the Virtual BM Lab going forward.
Want to Know More about RPL?
In this White Paper, you can learn more about the theoretical approach to learning and the six pedagogical principles that promote Reflective Practice-Based Learning. Meet us at the Teaching Forum Poster Session Thursday at 12:45 or download it here
Join the second European Conference on Reflective Practice-based Learning 2023 on November 20th-22th, 2023
in Aalborg, Denmark.
