Every educator's imaginative instincts will be guided by this book's practical design method, which harnesses the power of play for student learning. Teachers from all disciplines and levels can create a full spectrum of engaging exercises through the authors' six accessible ALLURE steps: (1) Ask where to apply the play; (2) List the mental moves;…

Methods for teaching higher education students how to learn teamwork skills are constantly evolving. Over the last few years, serious games have become popular in business schools for stimulating teamwork among students by making them focus on the game while pursuing a team objective. Among these games, LEGO® Serious Play has shown enormous…

Playfulness as a learning technique is applied into the present research in a group of adult learners. Initially, a game scenario was designed and implemented for the subject of microeconomics. Following a qualitative research methodology, through observation and interviews with ten participants before and after the playful activity, the results…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to re-center playfulness as a humanizing approach in teacher education. As teachers navigate the current moment of heightened control, surveillance, and systemic inequity, these proposed moves in teacher education can be transgressive. Rather than play as relegated to childhood or infancy, what does it look…

This paper introduces the results of applying a gameful approach based on six playful activities as a tool to improve the learning process in higher education. A total of 850 students from different courses of Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Spain) were involved in the study. The strategy was evaluated through a participant observation (active and…

Higher education faculty strive to adopt pedagogical approaches that generate student engagement, motivation, and quality learning experiences. The literature on play has much to offer higher education. However, playful pedagogy remains an uncommon approach in education and is often represented in the literature as a practice utilized for a…

With the emergence of more narrative-focused video games, this study attempted to better understand how college students construct meaning through these interactive experiences as a means of understanding social and cultural differences and perspectives. This study explored how playing narrative-focused video games may interconnect with college…

Game-based learning has received significant attention in educational pedagogy as an effective way of increasing student motivation and engagement. The majority of the work in this area has been focused on digital games or games involving technology. We focus on the use of traditional game design in improving student engagement and perception of…

This paper reports a design case for a story-driven language learning game called "Arena." "Arena" was developed in the design science tradition, where purpose-built artifacts are used as a springboard for scientific inquiry. As such, "Arena" is a vehicle for designers and researchers to study the effectiveness of…