The Innovation of the Gameportal ThiGro ® and Benefits of Using the Games

Context: According to the Norwegian SHoT-survey, Students health and well-being survey, students struggle to cope with everyday study life for various reasons. Oslo Metropilitan University (OsloMet) wanted to help students during the transition from student to work life. To achieve this, OsloMet started the project "Ready for work life – career learning on the schedule". The main goal of the project was to develop learning activities preparing students for student and work life. One of the activities we developed was the digital reflection board game Think&Grow. This game was a pilot version of games in the ThiGro® game portal. After a Disclosure of Invention analysis (DOFI) of the game Think&Grow, OsloMet decided to make an innovation. The DOFI analysis pointed out a need of a professional digital partner with a high-level of Technological expertise, to be able to develop the gaming portal we wanted. Approach: August 2023 OsloMet and CoreTrek signed the partnership agreement for the collaboration on the social innovation – the gameportal ThiGro®. In this paper I will discuss the benefits of partnership and using ThiGro® games as a learning tool to develop career skills for pupils and students. I will discuss this according to the experience from the innovation project and the results of my research related to testing the pilot version of the game for new students. The research is based on the results of a student survey and pedagogical observation of students playing the pilot game Think&Grow. Findings: The results from my research point out that playing games help students to reflect and put words into their own and other students challenges. Students liked to play the games as a learning activity. The students said that its easier to talk about challenges using games. Our experiences is that partnerships between private companies and universities can be both challenging and fruitful at the same time. Conclusions: I conclude that partnership between higher education and private companies has synergy effects by combining knowledge and expert competence from both organizations. Students benefit from using digital learning tools that combine pedagogical methods and new technology. They learn to reflect and communicate on difficult topics in a fearless way, and in that way the can manage challenges easier.