Games People Play

Beyond novelty: Aligning game genre and mechanics with learning theories for student engagement.

Businesses and high schools recognise and exploit learner engagement through the use of particular games or programs and assess the use of and learning from these games. In higher education we (Penny and me) are framing the cognitive process of how the learning occurs in this new culture of learning via a Gaming Theory Curriculum model.  Far from being unstructured play, gaming curriculum demonstrates highly organized achievement level quantifiable learning outcomes. Our research will show how a curriculum model of gaming theory has been developed through the subject of computer game design and how this model can be adapted and replicated across other subjects and other disciplines. In addition to aligning game genre and mechanics with learning theories for student engagement, we will also demonstrate a model where multiple outcomes are assessed by a process of reverse engineering, where the steps towards the final 'answer' are retraced to discover where and to what extent the desired learning objectives have been achieved.

Applying Nulty's (2012) Relational Curriculum Design and combining this with Tasker's (2012) cognitive learning concept where constructivism meets reflection, we will show how student engagement can be achieved and enhanced. Students become active participants in designing their own learning trajectories, are motivated to succeed, and engage in deep learning with the content within the boundaries negotiated with the teacher. The teacher partners and mentors in the learning process, guiding students to seek their own destinations, each of which can be unpacked and assessed using criterion marking.

And that's where we're starting...