Serious Play

Games and Learning encompasses research into the use of games in learning environments. Subtopics include creation of social and cultural worlds, communities of game play, and use of game-generated data. Currently the most prominent themes revolve around design principles to support student engagement, Meaningful Learning, learner self-concept, brain development, social interaction, and collaborative knowledge production.

Constructionism is focused on the learning that happens through being immersed in making physical objects. Such learning is seen as participatory and situated, and it involves connecting and integrating different ideas.

Maker Education is a collaborative, hands-on, problem- or project-based approach that emphasizes prototyping and repurposing objects to innovate. Maker Education focuses on developing insights into how things work and thus eschews prefabricated kits and models. In schools, Maker Education is learner driven and emphasizes interdisciplinarity, iteration (cycles of building and revising), and peer-to-peer teaching.

Design Thinking is about the cognitive, strategic, and practical processes associated with designing solutions and/or products. Design Thinking is considered a process for innovation and includes problem seeking and identification, imagining solutions or products, planning, creating, prototyping, testing, and improving, as it spans solution-based strategies for solving ill-defined problems across human-made and natural contexts.

Broadly speaking, Gamification refers to the use of elements and principles of game-design in non-game situations. Within education, Gamification is typically focused on making learning activities more engaging. Sub-interests span such topics as student efficacy, Learning Transfer, identity formation, real-time feedback, problem solving, scaffolded learning, and social connection.