Serious Play

Serious Play Research Project 2010-2017

ARC Linkage Grant LP110200309

Investigation into how learning, curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment changes when digital games are introduced into the K12 learning environment. Investigating student out-of-school experience of games and games-based learning to support literacy, creativity and disciplinary learning through the use of commercial and ‘educational’ (serious) games. Working with primary and secondary schools across government and private sectors in the Australian states of Queensland and Victoria, the research was focused on six areas:

1. the ways in which students with widely differing preferences and experiences with digital games and digital culture approached games-based teaching in the classroom;
2. the ways in which the experience of game-play changed in classroom contexts;
3. the ways teachers worked with digital games most effectively, and the kinds of pedagogical practices and approaches that best capitalised on the capacities of games to teach;
4. the opportunity games provided for creativity, production, and innovation; and
5. digital literacies and the ways in which learning through games challenged and extended multimodal literacy learning.