Next week I’m launching my gaming in higher education seminar for Georgetown University’s Learning, Design, and Technology program. I am very excited, as ever, because it’s a great topic and one I’m eager to see my students engage. I have many plans and ideas, which are about 99% set. Here I’ll share those plans and ideas, partly for feedback, as well as to document some of my teaching practice in the open.
This is a class I’ve taught before. The idea is to introduce students to the many ways higher education can use gaming, so that they can make informed decisions about the subject in their subsequent professional lives. For example, they might go on to be part of educational design teams in academia or elsewhere.
So, the way the class works is a mix of activities. They play example games and compare notes, both in person and through writing. They discuss scholarly readings. I briefly present on each type of game. Gradually they build up a final project, either an educational game or a detailed plan for a gamified class.
A student and I trying out an early version of a tabletop game.
We begin by introducing tabletop, role playing, and computer games in order to give students a sense of the full field. (I point to sports, but don’t address them much unless students do.) Next we dive into college and university uses, emphasizing teaching. We try out educational computer, tabletop, and role playing games, as well as look into gamification. Then we focus in on design aspects, building on our experience so far and trying some challenging example games. The last month of the class branches out (heh heh) into several topics, including storytelling, AI, and a topic students collaboratively determine.
I’m doing some new stuff with the class, because I can’t resist tinkering. I’ve cut readings down a bit and made more in-class time for game design. One class is really focused on design work, plus allows room for overflow content and student reflection on where we’ve come. I’m trying to allow more time for game play, because students needed it before. The amount of technology is down a bit, because we didn’t get into each tool enough last time. I’m also reorganizing the seminar because it’s a fully hybrid/HyFlex one, with roughly one half of students online and one half remote; I’m writing a followup post on this.
I’ve also increased the climate change theme. There are more climate games and I plan on making it a more salient topic.
Here’s the syllabus. I’ve delinked some links because they pointed to restricted files.
January 14, 2025 – Introductions and into the magic circle
- The idea and practice of the class
- Our individual experiences with gaming
- Introduction to gaming (slides)
- An introductory game: The Quiet Year
- Technology: Twine and Steam (download to your class device)
- writing in Canvas:
- student self-description character sheets
- what is your game persona’s D&D alignment? (This quiz might help)
January 21, 2025 – Tabletop gaming
- Introduction (slides)
- Readings: on the history on Monopoly; on the sociology of tabletop gaming; on the affordances of gameplay
- Games: Ogre; Catan
January 28, 2025 – Role Playing Games – CLASS ONLINE
- Introduction (slides)
- Readings: Fuist, “The Agentic Imagination – Tabletop Role-playing Games as a Cultural Tool”; Garcia, “Privilege, Power, and D&D”
- Games: we’ll use Year Zero for a system (copy this character sheet)
- Design exercise: RPG for a higher education class
February 4, 2025 – Computer Gaming
- Introductory notes (slides)
- Games:
- Readings: Patrick Jagoda, “Videogame Criticism and Games in the Twenty-First Century” ; “Worlds at Play Space and Player Experience in Fantasy Computer Games” ; “Standard Patterns in Choice-Based Games”.
February 11, 2025 – Education and Gaming, I
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- Introduction (slides)
- Reading: James Paul Gee, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. (1-69; Appendix)
- Games:
- together: Spent
- pick one from Molle Industries; A Game of College; Quantum Game; Go Viral!
- Introduction to context for one of next week’s games
***February 17: Analysis of one game due ; no class this week
Historical games, seen at the Strong National Museum of Play
February 25, 2025 – Education and Gaming, II – CLASS ONLINE
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- Reading: James Paul Gee, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (71-219).
- Games:
- Computer games, science and humanities: Bondbreaker; Waterworks!
- Role playing games: Reacting to the Past
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- Your gamebook
- Norwich churches
- The city of Pistoia reacts
- Avicenna on medieval medicine
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(Spring break March 4, 2025)
March 11, 2025- Gamification
- Infographic
- Video: McGonigal, “Making a Better World”
- Readings: Ana Manzano-León et al, “Between Level Up and Game Over: A Systematic Literature Review of Gamification in Education”; Michael Sailer & Lisa Homner, “The Gamification of Learning: a Meta-analysis Meta-Analysis”
- Design exercises
- We gamify a class
- Each student gamifies a class in their area of interest
- Optional resource: Karl Kapp’s gamification LinkedIn videosLinks to an external site.
- Designing climate simulation games: compare En-Roads, Smogtown. and The Climate Game.
March 19, 2025 – Design for gaming and education, I
- Reading: on empathy and game design; Dyson, “Tabletop RPGs on creativity”; Elizabeth Lapensee, “Indigenous Board Game Design in The Gift of Food”
- Videos: making one Mario level;designing Space Invaders
- Games:
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- intro: Keep Teaching
- Daybreak.
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- Optional technology: Game Maker 2 (download and install)
***March 21 – Pitch plan for final project due
March 26, 2025 – Design for gaming and education, II
- Canvas discussion writing
- Reading: one university ARG; Resonant Games chapters 5 , 6, and 8 (if you want more theory, check out 2; for more game examples, look into 3 or 4)
- Game: Levee en Masse.
- Technology: Game Maker 2
- Testing out student games in progress
April 2, 2025 – Storytelling and games
- Storytelling introduction
- Readings: Gordon Civic Creativity and Role-Playing Games in Deliberative Process; Alexander, “Gaming: Storytelling on a Small Scale” and “Gaming: Storytelling on a Large Scale”, from The New Digital Storytelling, pp 97-127.
- Games:
- Introduction: The Thing From the Future
- A Dark Room
- Collaborative game design time
April 9, 2025 – Design, explore, and catch up
- Collaborative game design time
- Bring a game for us to play
- Reflect on what we’ve learned so far
April 16, 2025 – AI, gaming, and education
- Students collectively determine next week’s topics and work
- Readings:
- “Video Game Created Entirely With ChatGPT, DALL-E 3, and Midjourney”; Javi Lopez X thread; Angry Pumpkins
- Breen, “Simulating Ancient Ur with ChatGPT”
- Exercises:
- How to best use generative AI
- Use AI to create tabletop, RPG, and computer games
- Collaborative game design time
April 23, 2025 – Student selected topic:
- Readings
- Games: Papers, Please
April 30, 2025 – Final project demonstrations and presentations
- Invite us to play and garner feedback
***May 6 – final project due
Coming up next: redesigning this class for HyFlex.
I truly enjoyed reading about how you have structured your class. The variety of games you included and the flexibility for students to choose are fascinating. It allows them to explore diverse types of games while learning. Although I am not a big gamer myself, I do enjoy introducing others to different kinds of games and tools, especially in the educational field. For example, I use platforms like Kahoot or Genially—not exactly games, but tools for creating game-based learning experiences.
The games I am familiar with are Among Us and Minecraft—lol, just kidding! I might know more, but those are the ones that come to mind right now. However, after watching the video “Gaming Can Make a Better World,” I feel inspired to explore gaming more deeply. The video introduced intriguing ideas about using games to solve real-world problems, and I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw Steam—it felt a bit overwhelming! Still, I believe platforms like that could be a great resource for both personal growth and helping students tackle challenges.
I found the paper on tabletop games especially engaging. In Colombia, we have a traditional game called parqués (here’s a link: https://lulocolombia.travel/blog/parques-game-master-colombian-game/). I’m not sure if you’re familiar with it, but I think games like this could be adapted for educational purposes. I imagine your students over the years have brought board games from their own countries, which must have sparked fascinating discussions. This gave me an idea for an educational video or even a project exploring how traditional games can teach cultural and academic concepts.
One of the most interesting aspects of your blog was the explanation of the difference between gamification and game-based learning, which I discovered through the infographic you shared for the 2024 seminar. I think I lean more toward gamification, as it allows for integrating game elements without fully turning the classroom into a gaming environment. While using games can certainly enhance learning, overusing them might sometimes distract from the main educational goals. Of course, I imagine the choice of approach depends heavily on the topic being taught and the students’ needs. What do you think? Is there an ideal approach, or does it depend on the context and population?
The video “Gaming Can Make a Better World” also resonated with me deeply. I liked the idea of applying “gamer’s optimism” to real-life challenges. Concepts like blissful productivity, social fabric, urgent optimism, and epic meaning show how gaming can foster positive mindsets and encourage people to believe they can succeed in life. This perspective—that we can create any future we can imagine and play any game we want—feels both empowering and inspiring.
Lastly, I appreciated the emphasis on incorporating academic papers and resources such as the CO2 game, Twine, Storyboard, and Harlowe into your seminar. These tools not only enrich the learning experience but also highlight the importance of teaching students critical thinking, especially in a world dominated by social media and misinformation.
This gave me the idea that after conducting interviews and gathering information from my academic project I mentioned to you, I could work on a game concept or even write an article about my findings. I’m still brainstorming, but your blog has sparked a lot of ideas!
Thank you so much for sharing your project with the world. It has provided valuable insights into how games can be used to educate and inspire, and it means a lot to have access to your work.