Cartoon of person playing platform game

Games as Education in the United Kingdom

Alison Harvey

Abstract


Digital game studies and design have rapidly become popular teaching areas in the United Kingdom. They also have a long history as tools for education in a range of disciplines through game-based learning. This project sought to inform teaching and learning within the College of Social Sciences, Arts, and Humanities, the College of Science and Engineering, and the College of Medicine, Biological Sciences and Psychology through an exploration of the challenges, practices, and feedback of instructors and instructional designers on teaching with, through and on digital games. A workshop was held in the School of Media, Communication, and Sociology in May 2016 to understand emerging challenges and opportunities related to games-based teaching practice, innovations in assessment, available and needed resources for teaching, and game-based curricula. Participants included staff across the University of Leicester using digital games for learning and assessment as well as digital game studies and design instructors across the United Kingdom. Through collaborative discussion and workshopping of best practices related to teaching with games, this workshop generated a sharable portfolio of materials. It also provided insight into several possibilities for integrating this media form into higher education as well as significant challenges to consider moving forward, which are reported on here.

Keywords


game design, game-based learning, games in education

References


Fisher, S. & Harvey, A. (2013). “Intervention for inclusivity: Gender politics and indie game development.” Loading…Journal of the Canadian Game Studies Association, 7(11), pp. 25-40.

Gros, B. (2014). “Digital Games in Education: The Design of Games-Based Learning Environments.” Journal of Research on Technology in Education 40(1), pp. 23-38.

Kiili, K. (2005). “Digital game-based learning: Towards an experiential gaming model.” The Internet and Higher Education 8(1), pp. 13-24.

Leicester Learning Institute. (2017). Large Scale Curriculum Scholarship. Retrieved December 5, 2017, from http://bit.ly/curriculumscholarship.

Pearce, N., Weller, M., Scanlon, E. & Kinsley, S. (2010). “Digital scholarship considered: how new technologies could transform academic work.” In Education 16(1).

Prensky, M. (2007). Digital Game-Based Learning. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House Publishers.

Race, P. (2014). Making Learning Happen: 3rd edition. London: Sage.

Reilly, P. (2014). “The right blend? The use of Blackboard to support international dissertation students.” Journal of Excellence in Teaching and Learning.

Squire, K. (2002). “Cultural framing of computer/video games.” Game Studies 2(1).

Taylor, N., Jenson, J. & de Castell, S. (2007). "Gender in play: mapping a girls’ gaming club.” Paper presented at the Digital Games Research Association Annual Conference, Sep 24-28, 2007, Tokyo, Japan.

Van Eck, R. (2006). “Digital Game-Based Learning: It's Not Just the Digital Natives Who Are Restless....” EDUCAUSE Review 41(2), pp. 16-30.

Whitton, N. & Moseley, A. (Eds.) (2012). Using Games to Enhance Learning and Teaching: A Beginner's Guide. London: Routledge.




DOI: https://doi.org/10.29311/jlthe.v1i1.2539

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2018

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.