Community building through play: Development and design of a board game for review in an undergraduate anatomy course

Engaging students and fostering interactions can be a challenge in large enrollment, foundational-level, undergraduate anatomy classes. Despite the active learning environment of the anatomy laboratory, students often struggle to find study partners or even speak to fellow learners in a large classroom. This is a missed opportunity for our learners to socialize and work with others to build a learning community and sense of belonging. To connect these learners, we outline the creation of a board game that could be played multiple times throughout the semester during open laboratory review sessions as we encounter different regions of the body. The game, The Anatomy Adventures of Knowledge Knight, takes our players through a kingdom where they must use their anatomy expertise to overcome many challenges. In this article, we discuss game development as we consider the learner population in a large enrollment, hybrid, regional anatomy course with hundreds of students. Goals include not only covering lecture objectives via leveled questions based on the game board, but also story points and mnemonics to support player interactions. We also highlight accessibility and inclusion efforts in the creation of the game board and materials. This article discusses considerations for other educators who plan to create their own board game, as well as providing the game materials for instructors to use, with flexible templates for broad application.