Purposeful Games for Learning: The Power of Play for Teaching and Learning
Purposeful games for learning can transform students' learning experiences. In this experiential, project-focused course we will explore the power of game-play experiences to engage students and facilitate incredible learning opportunities. Together we will build the skills, competencies, and knowledge necessary to design exceptional purposeful games for learning.
Description
Games and gameplay have huge potential to support, encourage, and enhance learning experiences. At the heart of all great learning is play and games help to bring learning and play together in a way that lets us achieve our learning goals whilst engaging in exciting, fun, and collaborative activities.
Purposeful games are games that have additional goals beyond the goals of the game itself. Lots of games we play are purely for enjoyment but purposeful games allow us to use the fun of game playing to develop skills, knowledge, competencies, and understanding.
The Purposeful Games for Learning workshop is an experiential, design-focused workshop that equips participants to devise, design, construct, and run purposeful games for their students and participants.
Purposeful games can be a powerful tool for lots of different situations including classrooms, museums, galleries, non-formal learning spaces, and extra-curricular learning.
Working collaboratively with other educators, this course will help you:
Understand the core principles of purposeful game design.
Learn how to design, develop, and test purposeful games.
Incorporate learning goals and objectives into the design of purposeful games.
Understand the different formats purposeful games might take, including role-playing games, board games, digital/video games, activity games, puzzle games, and more.
Develop skills for teaching and running purposeful games for learning.
Learning objectives
Understanding the fundamentals of purposeful game design.
Learning how to align game design to learning goals, aims, and objectives.
Gaining experience in running and implementing purposeful games for learning.
Developing practical expertise in designing purposeful games and game-play experiences.
Exploring how purposeful games can enhance, elevate, and extend student learning.
By the end of the course, participants will have the skills, knowledge, and confidence to design and run purposeful games for learning in their own educational context.
Methodology & assessment
The workshop will involve:
- design thinking
- group work
- project work
- individual work
- experiential learning
- creative learning activities
- design sprints
- problem-solving
- critical thinking
- reflective exercises
Throughout the workshop, participants will have the opportunity to reflect on what they are learning and to share their insights with others. This will help them to solidify their learning and develop a deeper understanding of the game design process.
Assessment will be based on peer, group, and individual reflective practices supported by feedback, guidance, and commentary from the workshop facilitators. There will be no formal assessment process.
The overall goal of the workshop is to help teachers and educators develop the skills and knowledge they need to design and develop purposeful games for learning in their own educational contexts.
Certification details
At the end of the course, each participant will receive a certificate of attendance that documents their learning and certifies their participation. These certificates are issued on behalf of SWUX and are signed by the course leader or facilitator.
If requested, a Europass Mobility Certificate can also be issued.
All of our certificates meet Erasmus Quality Standards and include the course title, date, and location, a description of the course, its learning outcomes, and the course leader or facilitator.
Any additional documentation required by schools or education organisations can be supplied upon request, and we work hard to ensure that participants and organisations are supported throughout the certification and validation process.
Pricing, packages and other information
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Price:595Euro
Additional information
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Language:English
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Target audience ISCED:Primary education (ISCED 1)Lower secondary education (ISCED 2)Upper secondary education (ISCED 3)
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Target audience type:Head Teacher / PrincipalNot-for-profit / NGO staffTeacher
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Learning time:15-20 hours
