Purposeful games for learning

Games and gameplay have a huge potential to support, encourage, and enhance learning experiences. At the heart of all great learning is play and games help to bring learning and play together in a way that lets us achieve our learning goals whilst engaging in exciting, fun, and collaborative activities.

Purposeful games are games that have additional goals beyond the goals of the game itself. Lots of games we play are purely for enjoyment but purposeful games allow us to use the fun of game playing to develop skills, knowledge, competencies, and understanding.

The Purposeful Games for Learning workshop is an experiential, design-focused workshop that equips participants to devise, design, construct, and run purposeful games for their students and participants.

Purposeful games can be a powerful tool for lots of different situations including classrooms, museums, galleries, non-formal learning spaces, and extra-curricular learning.

Working collaboratively with other educators, this course will help you:

• Understand the core principles of purposeful game design.

• Learn how to design, develop, and test purposeful games.

• Incorporate learning goals and objectives into the design of purposeful games.

• Understand the different kinds of formats purposeful games might take, including role-playing games, board games, digital/video games, activity games, puzzle games, and more.

• Develop skills for teaching and running purposeful games for learning.

This course is an experiential, project-focused exploration of the power of game-play experiences to transform teaching and learning. Together we will build the skills, competencies, and knowledge necessary to design exceptional purposeful games for learning.

This course is eligible for funding under the Erasmus+ Key Action 1: Learning Mobility of Individuals

Find out more about Erasmus+ KA 1 here.

Find out more about Erasmus+ funding and opportunities here.

• Understanding the fundamentals of purposeful game design.

• Learning how to align game design to learning goals, aims, and objectives.

• Gaining experience in running and implementing purposeful games for learning.

• Developing practical expertise in designing purposeful games and game-play experiences.

• Exploring how purposeful games can enhance, elevate, and extend student learning.

We offer this course as both an in-person course, which is held at our learning space in Novi Sad, Serbia and as an online course. Both courses cover the same material with the same level of depth and the same high-quality of teaching. Any differences between the two courses are to allow the best possible learning experience in that particular mode of instruction.

In-Person Course

Day 1:

• Introductions

• Setting the learning journey

• A shared game-play experience

• Game design essentials

Day 2:

• Exploring the problem space

• Understanding purposeful games

• Game Design Jam Part 1

Day 3:

• Game Design Jam Part 2

• Sharing the game designs

• Gathering feedback

• Reflections on the game-design experience

• Planning our next steps

Online Workshop

Our online workshop follows the same overall format and structure and covers all of the same content as the in-person workshop. Activities are adjusted or adapted where necessary to suit an online learning environment but we work hard to ensure the same level of experience and the same exceptional outcomes.

Our online workshop is split over 5 days:

Monday: 2 hours in the evening

Tuesday: 2 hours in the evening

Wednesday: 2 hours in the evening

Thursday: 2 hours in the evening

Friday: 2 hours in the evening

All sessions include breaks and time for questions, reflections, and queries.

This course is specifically designed for teachers and educators who are interested in exploring, designing, and implementing purposeful games for learning, and would be a great learning experience for educators from both formal and non-formal backgrounds.

This course is particularly good for:

• Classroom teachers at primary and secondary levels.

• Workshop designers and facilitators.

• Non-formal learning staff such as those who work in museums, galleries, theatres or other such spaces.

• Early years and primary school teachers.

• Individuals working with social enterprises, charities, or NGOs.

At the end of the course, each participant will receive a certificate of attendance that documents their learning and certifies their participation. These certificates are issued on behalf of SWUX and are signed by the course leader or facilitator.

If requested, a Europass Mobility Certificate can also be issued.

All of our certificates meet Erasmus Quality Standards and include the course title, date, and location, a description of the course, its learning outcomes, and the course leader or facilitator.

Any additional documentation required by schools or education organisations can be supplied upon request, and we work hard to ensure that participants and organisations are supported throughout the certification and validation process.