1 - Call to Adventure

Welcome

Hello to the first year of Creative Media & Game Technologies studies! Again, we wish you a warm welcome and hope you have a great kick-off of your new adventure here in Groningen.

In front of you is a journey: a path full of meeting new people, learning new skills, creating new things and growing as a person and professional. On this journey we want to help you develop the best way you can, that’s why we created this method for the academic counselling sessions.


Academic counselling


During the first year(s) of the CMGT study you wel get frequent help and supervision from an academic counsellor. That means you will talk with them every block, which is four times in the year. The goal of academic counselling is helping you get through the studies and answer questions that you have regards to it. It is not about the content of the courses specifically but more about your approach and progress. 


High Impact Learning & CMGT competencies


At CMGT we use High Impact Learning that Lasts (HILL) as a model for how we facilitate your study. 


HILL is centered around the following things:

  • Creating urgency: working with real-life problems, making it matter for/to you.

  • Self-management/learner agency: you are in control, you create your own action plan and show your way of meeting the competencies

  • Collaboration & Coaching. Working with teams and working with a lecturer that coaches you and facilitates your learning (instead of exactly telling you what to do).

  • Hybrid Learning: different forms, methods and blended learning, online and offline

  • Action and sharing: learning is an experience, by doing and by sharing and discussing things with peers

  • Flexibility and mixing formal/informal learning. Meaning you learn by doing different things: creating, watching, participating, gaming etc. Not always structured in hours by Hanze.

  • Assessment as learning: demonstrations and interviews are how we assess, you get feedback along the way (not only at the end of the block) and also get points by reflecting on your actions and approach to meet the competencies.


HILL is a model that works around learner agency: self-management. That means that we try to teach you how to be a professional that can self-regulate. Within the set competencies you can set your own goals and think of your best way to show how you learn and meet the level that we ask. 


The lecturer is more or less a coach for your own path, meaning we teach not only by lessons per class but also by giving personal feedback regularly on request and by asking you to reflect on your actions multiple times. We don’t do old-school paper tests, in this study you directly start creating products/applications/games and you have a lot of freedom to do that in your own manner.


It is a flexible way of teaching that on one hand seems very relaxed to some students, but in fact asks of you to actively self-regulate because you are the only one that can initiate your actions and learn new skills by working and doing on the competencies. Of course working with teams, lecturers, coaches and academic counsellors will help with that.


CMGT Competencies

These are the competency learning outcomes that you will (and we ask you to) develop in the CMGT study. Read this through:


1. Developing Technical Solutions 

1. The CMGT professional generates technical solutions by using the relevant knowledge and theories of digital technologies.

2. The CMGT professional iterates with digital technology to improve technical solutions. 

3. The CMGT professional analyses and researches technological solutions.


2. Visualising and Prototyping

1. The CMGT professional visualises technological solutions by using relevant digital technologies.
2. The CMGT professional develops digital interactive prototypes, using prototype development methods and techniques

3. The CMGT professional can shape and substantively elaborate concepts using digital prototypes. 


3. User experience 

1. The CMGT professional extrapolates improvements for the end user based on iterative evaluations of designs and prototypes.

2. The CMGT professional masters a range of user experience methods and techniques, including relevant theories, to improve the situation. 

3. The CMGT professional generate concepts for technical solutions on the basis of acquired knowledge, independently generated ideas and the relevant user requirements.


4. Implementing and producing

1. The CMGT professional synthesises the relevant technological skills to iteratively construct technological solutions. 

2. The CMGT professional delivers technological solutions through relevant channels and business models for their solution. 


5. Futures Innovating

1. The CMGT professional reframes new technological trends and instantiates them into realisable solutions.
2. The CMGT professional imagines innovative concepts and solutions to address previously unaddressed problems or situations.


6. Organising and process

1. The CMGT professional is capable of planning, implementing, monitoring and managing process-based projects as part of a team and providing information on the progress. 

2. The CMGT professional can convincingly communicate the added value and functionality of the technological concept or solution amongst clients, team and users.

Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen - Information Dossier Bachelor CMGT 11


7. Self-fashioning

1. The CMGT professional manages their own development, is capable of formulating learning needs, can reflect on and takes responsibility for their own learning process. 

2. The CMGT professional operates and performs within a team, taking ethical and intercultural values into account.

3. The CMGT professional builds connections, brings people together, encourages the exchange of information, and makes use of their own network to obtain specific information or knowledge.


Your Journey

To aid in the self-regulating and for the academic counselling progress and to give you a solid base for starting your professional development, before you lies a method to help you develop your competencies in the CMGT field. You will set goals, look at your skills, dreams, ways and means and reflect on the actions taken while also looking ahead, to the future.


Every block there are 2-3 assignments to do, we recommend you do these before you have your academic counselling meeting of that block. Take your notes/assignments to the meetings so that you and your AC can talk about it. Your AC can help you set your goals and reflect more specifically for example. 


The assignments start by setting goals within the CMGT competencies, then reflecting on your work and actions every block. You do so not only formally, but by thinking in visual ways , using imagination and writing/drawing narrative pieces that draw inspiration from The Hero’s Journey. The Hero’s Journey is a theory stating that a lot of stories and mythology are similar. The question is: who are you as a hero on your own journey and what will your path challenges and actions be?


N.B. for privacy reasons: it is better to not mail the AC your assignments, as the documents may not be saved following Hanze privacy rules. If you print/write things out yourself, the information is in your own hands, be aware of it.