Intergenerational Learning through an Ecologically-focused Game Design Project Between Youth and Adult Learners

• In Event: Empowerment-Focused Computing in Constructionist Learning Environments

Abstract

This study focuses on a collaborative curriculum between graduate game design and elementary students. The objective of this project is to engage game design students and elementary students in developing essential computational skills —such as systems thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, and effective communication—through the creation of transformational board games and video games, respectively, that address local, ecological issues. By working together in a player-centered design process that includes iterative prototyping, playtesting, and feedback loops, students explored how games can be used as powerful tools to raise awareness and inspire individual and systemic change. This project emphasizes the development of computational identity (Tissenbaum et al. 2019), encouraging students to learn from one another through an intergenerational learning process. The learning experience fosters rich exchanges of perspectives between adult and youth learners, empowering them to co-create meaningful solutions through game design. It highlights game design as a community-centered, creative practice that builds environmental and social responsibility in diverse educational contexts.

The project is grounded in a constructionist framework, emphasizing hands-on, learner-driven creation as a powerful way to build knowledge and identity (Papert, 1980). The curriculum integrates culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogy alongside collegial pedagogy, centering students’ lived experiences and local environmental issues to make learning personally meaningful and socially impactful (Alim & Paris, 2017; Chávez & Soep, 2005). By fostering reciprocal relationships and shared authority, the approach empowers adult students and young learners to co-construct knowledge as peers. Finally, the transformational game design framework (Culyba, 2018) serves as a vehicle for students to create games through a player-centered process, inspiring critical reflection and continuous feedback while encouraging collaboration and active engagement with one another.

We used an action research approach, collecting data through pre- and post-surveys, observations and memos, focus group interviews, final board game artworks, and final circle sharing sessions. These methods provide rich, multi-dimensional evidence to understand participants’ experiences, growth in skills, and the impact of collaborative, creative learning processes.

We found that the playtesting process provided generative insights for game design students and offered a point of view from the target audience that directly impacted iterations of the design. The playtesting process allowed the elementary students to be directly involved in the design process, offering a window into the complex steps that designers go through and validating their feedback as they witnessed its implementation. Game oriented communication and collaboration offered unanticipated informal learning opportunities in computational thinking. The direct intergenerational learning process allowed students to learn from each other during playtesting.

Instead of traditional age-based learning environments, this study demonstrates the opportunities for deeper, more authentic learning through equitable, intergenerational collaborations. Critical to this is the design of a learning ecology where inherent power dynamics are addressed through the reciprocal expertise of all participants. Power is shifted to learning through co-creation, regardless of age. Building on the three decades of literature in culturally-relevant pedagogy, this study demonstrates what a hyperlocal, place-based curriculum has in instilling interest, passion, and motivation for learners seeking to impact positive change in their community.

Authors

• Clifford H. Lee, Northeastern University

• Lyndsay Schaeffer, Northeastern University

• Feifei Shen, Northeastern University