“EDST210/IDEA209: Educational Game Lab” was first created and taught in Spring 2021, and it is now taught every year at Wesleyan University. It is jointly hosted by the College of Education Studies and the College of Design and Engineering Studies. This course is a creative seminar and workshop for students who want to engage in innovative and game-based pedagogy, as well as discuss its implications for education at large.
Course description
In the past two decades, crowdfunding and renewed interest in games (board games, role-playing games, digital games, and instructional games) have created an increased and diverse gaming production, which has become the subject of several studies, articles, and projects related to all areas of education, from hard sciences to language learning and the arts. In an effort to explore how a game-informed pedagogy can work in various types of courses and to highlight tabletop (non digital) gaming approaches that have worked inside and outside the classroom, this course will explore the basics of Game-Based Learning (GBL) and Game Design.
“Educational Gaming Lab” is designed as a project-based gaming laboratory that will focus on why and how tabletop games can be effective tools for pedagogy: examples will include board games, tabletop role-playing games, and escape games. Participants will discuss the application of gaming principles to various subjects and types of classrooms, and then create a final project: a learning game. Students may adapt an existing game for a specific learning outcome or create a brand new game. The course offers students the opportunity to reflect on innovative and radical pedagogy, and to develop critical knowledge within the rising and innovative field of Game-Based Learning. The course will be conducted in English, and games will be created in English (or in the relevant target language, if the game is for language learning).
Course objectives
Students will learn to:
– develop the vocabulary and critical understanding to describe and analyze games and their components, as well as the influence and application of games to different educational settings
– create a game (or adapt an existing one) from concept to playable prototype
– expand their concept of pedagogy to include innovative and unconventional approaches
– engage in meaningful discussion about gaming and education
– engage in reflexive practice
Bibliography
Excerpts from the following texts will be included:
– Arnaudo, Marco. The Tabletop Revolution. 2024.
– Boller, Sharon and Karl Kapp. Play to Learn. 2017.
– Caillois, Roger. Man, Play, and Games. 1958.
– Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. 1991.
– Deterding, Sebastian and Steffen Walz, eds. The Gameful World. 2014.
– Engelstein, Geoffrey, and Isaac Shalev. Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design. 2022 (2nd edition)
– Gee, James Paul. Good Video Games and Good Learning. 2013.
– Gray, Peter. Free to Learn. 2013.
– Heron, Michael. Tabletop Game Accessibility. 2024.
– Hon, Adrian. You’ve Been Played. 2022.
– Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens. 1949.
– Juul, Jesper. Half-Real. 2005.
– Kapp, Karl. The Gamification of Learning and Instruction. 2012.
– Nicholson, Scott, and Liz Cable. Unlocking the Potential of Puzzle-Based Learning. 2021.
– Reinhardt, Jonathon. Gameful Second and Foreign Language Teaching and Learning. 2019.
– Ruberg, Bonnie. The Queer Games Avant-garde. 2020.
– Salen, Katie and Eric Zimmermann. Rules at Play. 2007.
– Shaw, Adrienne. Gaming at the Edge. 2014
– Shell, Jesse. The Art of Game Design. 2020 (3rd edition)
– Zagal, Josè, and Sebastian Deterding, eds. Role-playing Game Studies. 2018
– Zimmerman, Eric. The Rules We Break and Manifesto for a Ludic Century. 2022 & 2014
