A New Paradigm for Learners and Teachers Thanks to Situational Pedagogical Games: Strengthening Transversal Skills

Introduction

Sustainable outcomes of the training offer in Higher Education (HE) are presented that justify the use of specific pedagogical devices to strengthen transversal skills; among them, we quote: autonomy, inter-cultural, leadership (Kotter, 1990), ability to lead and manage excellence; i.e. quality of the management. Today, stronger economic issues urge the skilled workforce to find a more efficient pedagogical solution to achieve the goal. Beyond the solution relying on the organization, quicker ones depend on the trainer's skills in pedagogy; the aim is to strengthen reflexive feedback on experience and active behavior of the learner in the training. Among pedagogical means and tools, quote: collaborative mapping, problem solving, Problem Based Learning (PBL) and Pedagogical Serious Games (PSG). In this way, it creates an Integrated Learning Environment (ILE) that takes advantage of any resources within the reach of learners to develop their autonomy and network; the Personal Learning Environment (PLE) (Downes, 2012) of parties included. In the following, first, a background is given with respect to the company needs to drive the change in learners (already employed or future employees) and then, the pedagogical serious games are presented in a general manner as a possible reply. Second, a pedagogical serious game called Total Quality Game (TQ-G) of long duration is introduced in contrast with new pedagogical serious mini-Games (mG) which are an adaption in connection with tighter constraints. The motivations for the design of the games are explained before their full presentation. Third, a feedback based on several years of experiment is given with focus on groundbreaking improvements; the TQ-G was first developed fifteen years ago for a company and then transferred to an academic training leading to Master's degrees whereas the mGs were created only two years ago. Through the years, the games were tested with different kinds of learners, trainings and even multi-cultural context (Chatelet & Nuninger, 2011). Finally, the added value of the chapter is to bring out a validated common design method and criteria to help the selection of the kind of games to implement with respect to expected results and resources. The good practices to design and monitor such activities are pointed out with identified risks; the success mainly relies on the trainers' skill, social behavior and commitment in the training. To conclude, after prospects, such activities should be recognized and supported by the organization and pedagogical team of the HE provider to make the best of it (skills transfer) with respect to the training global requirement specifications (knowledge to acquire, set of skills to develop, chosen pedagogy and assessment procedure) in addition to a new paradigm for teachers.