Springer A Guide to Designing Curricular Games: How to "Game" the System (Advances in Game-Based Learning)

This book is a guide to designing curricular games to suit the needs of students. It makes connections between video games and time-tested pedagogical techniques such as discovery learning and feedback to improve student engagement and learning. It also examines the social nature of gaming such as techniques for driver/navigator partners, small groups, and whole class structures to help make thinking visible; it expands the traditional design process teachers engage in by encouraging use of video game design techniques such as playtesting. The author emphasizes designing curricular games for problem-solving and warns against designing games that are simply “Alex Trebek (host of Jeopardy) wearing a mask”. By drawing on multiple fields such as systems thinking, design theory, assessment, and curriculum design, this book relies on theory to generate techniques for practice. From the Back Cover This book walks readers through the process of turning a class into a curricular game. This way teachers can co-opt the pedagogical techniques of video games such as immersion, just-in-time feedback, and leveling up instead of competing with them.  This manual provides a step-by-step process that guides teachers through designing their own curricular game at their level of technological expertise by showing readers how to do so without any technology or by repurposing tech tools familiar to most readers, thus allowing all readers to get their game on! About the Author Dr. Janna Jackson Kellinger is an associate professor at the College of Education and Human Development at University of Massachusetts, Boston. She received her Ph.D. from Boston College with a specialization in curriculum, policy, and school reform. Her publications range from contributed chapters in a variety of books to articles in journals such as Journal of Poverty and Teaching Education. Her first book, Unmasking Identities, explores how queer teachers navigate their profession.