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Designing the Win: Game Design, Professional Development, and the Literacies of Connected Learning

Sun, April 10, 10:35am to 12:05pm, Marriott Marquis, Floor: Level Two, Marquis Salon 15

Abstract

Numerous reports contend that games (and particularly videogames) are offering powerful opportunities for young people to learn, socialize, and strengthen literacies (Gee, 2007; Hunter, 2014; Toppo, 2015). At the same time, a proliferation in looking at young people as building, remixing, and making in today’s era of "connected learning" (Ito et al., 2013) suggests that elements of design and design-based thinking (such as in sandbox-like games such as Minecraft) are also powerful contexts for learning. Together, playing and learning are leading many of the informal forms of interaction, socialization, and learning outside of schools today. Recognizing these powerful shifts, this study examines the efforts of a group of public high school teachers that worked to leverage an ethos of making and play to engage in what they called a "player professional development."

Following a cohort of seven high school teachers over the course of an academic year, this study looks at how educators utilize principles of game design within their own, school-sanctioned professional development. This study collects fieldnotes, focus group interviews with teachers, PD-created artifacts including game design documents, games, and lesson plans, as well as teacher-produced reflections on their PPD and classroom practice from across the school year. Together, these qualitative data pieces offer a nuanced understanding of how one community of practice leveraged principles of connected learning to shape their understanding of game design, game play, and an ethos of making.

Over the year of PPD, these teachers went through a three-stage process of gameplay and game design. First, they invested their PD time in playing, analyzing, and remixing existing games including Monopoly, Magic: The Gathering, and Pac Man. Next, these teachers iterated their own game designs individually and in teams. Finally, these teachers looked at elements of play and at their game designs and implemented game-based curriculum within their classrooms. Though this final step did not occur until the second semester of this study, the teachers illuminated three key ways that game design influenced their practice:
The teachers voices and identified a fluidness and responsiveness within their practice that is akin to forms of musical improvisation (Sudnow, 1978). Teachers crafted gaming experiences within their classrooms that often "augmented" space and narrative for students, encouraging role-play and collaboration (Squire, 2010). Game design and gameplay solidified a shared identity for the teachers involved.

Ultimately, this study highlights how intentional game design increased the spatial and critical literacies of teachers and expands existing research on making, playing, and connected learning to more fully incorporate classroom teachers within a deeper learning ecosystem.

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