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Home | News | Rewind Gaming Education Rewind: Gaming Education Higher education students are missing out on what could be an integral part of their learning journeys — play By Aditya Deshbandhu Published Date - 30 November 2024, 11:30 PM Dr Aditya Deshbandhu What can video games as media and interactive experiences offer tomorrow’s learning environments? The introduction of play, games and aspects of video games in learning environments as a practice is gaining momentum and becoming prevalent globally. As teachers and researchers alike try to understand how the use of playful approaches in education can benefit the learning journeys of students from pre-school environments to the higher education sector, it is important for us to acknowledge that the boundary between learning and play — once considered sacrosanct, is now blurry. Existing research has highlighted how aspects like joy, creativity, the development of goal-setting abilities and working towards achieving set goals are common to both learning and engaging with games. Similarly, psychologists examining learning environments that have adopted playful approaches have observed many positive effects among students irrespective of methods, content and contextual settings. Recent research in education has also highlighted how play is a crucial part of not just pre-school and early years of schooling but throughout one’s educational journey. Designing a course that draws on games and play also means that learning environments are less hierarchical, there is more room for debate, discussion and pre-class preparation In my research, I have found that incorporating play in the classroom and informal learning environments allows students to develop better communication abilities and initiative, and work better in large-group settings. The use of playful activities and games in classes has also been found to lead to a reduction of the fear of failure, fostering environments that could lead to students not just consuming knowledge but co-creating it with their learning facilitators. However, the current disposition in India’s higher education sector remains unconvinced of the benefits of games and game-based learning for the nation’s students. Though a few of our eminent centres of learning offer technical and development skills or even a full-fledged degree in game development/design, they choose to ignore the fact that video games is the largest media industry in the world in terms of revenue. There was almost no mention of the need to engage with game-based learning, pedagogic approaches determined by play, or even the game development industry in the New Education Policy of 2020. Policymakers and the government are yet to engage with the Indian gaming industry’s call to create necessary standards for game development, e-sports degrees and infrastructure for vocational and skill-based training. In the interim, Indian students miss out on what could be an integral part of their learning journeys – play. These are avenues for experiences that could spark curiosity and further critical and reflective learning, aspects deemed essential in workplaces geared for increasing degrees of automation in the next decade. Playful Twist However, this article reflects on more than what our students are missing out on by not finding room for games, game-based learning and playful approaches in curricula . Drawing a bit from my teaching journey, it showcases specific examples where the use of games in classroom environments has enhanced the learning experience at the university level. I teach video games-based courses at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Over the last three years, as I have developed the courses, taught/delivered them, graded various assignments and engaged with students, I have observed a few key things: A few eminent centres of learning offer a full-fledged degree in game development/design but choose to ignore the fact that the video games is the largest media industry in the world in terms of revenue Levelling the classroom field Higher education classrooms are generally extremely diverse, be it internationally where students and teachers from a range of countries often feature in the room to Indian settings where the cohorts are diverse in terms of class, region, language, religion and background. In such diverse settings, I have observed that video games or playful activities are not just great at breaking the ice and getting the conversation flowing, but they also allow students to communicate with ease. In settings where language proficiency is a concern, I have witnessed games, through play and interactivity, bridge the gap between shyness and any awkwardness one might feel in one’s grasp of a specific language. Secondly, the incorporation of games into coursework offers students a shared set of experiences to bond over as well as a shared set of understandings to draw on when engaging with complex theories and ideas. For the teacher/facilitator, games can reduce the burden of integrating all the members of a classroom because the inherent interactivity games provide often means that students are searching through them for meaning, purpose and progression. If the integration of game-based learning initiatives improves in-class environments, it is essential to ask if the use of games could be developed to align with students’ desire to succeed in the Indian higher education setup. Collaboration and creative thinking Most games are designed as problem-solving environments and engaging with the right game in courses will encourage students to solve the problems the field poses in creative ways. It is necessary to reiterate that the use of games in curricula reduces the fear of failure among students which, in turn, allows them to experiment and explore beyond the scope of course outlines and prescribed learning materials. Looking beyond prescribed sources of learning is a great sign of initiative and often leads to very interesting explorations by students. There is almost no mention of the need to engage with game-based learning, pedagogic approaches determined by play, or even the game development industry in the New Education Policy I have had some very unconventional and thought-provoking assignments submitted to me where I have used games or play-based learning. Students have also been keener to work in teams, brainstorm ideas, and, at times, go over and beyond the deliverable learning outcomes that are designed for the course. Designing a course that draws on games and play also means that learning environments are less hierarchical, there is more room for debate, discussion and pre-class preparation. I have never had trouble with attendance and student participation in a course where I have used pedagogies of play. If the above benefits hold, then it is important to ask if games and play-based learning could encourage students to view their degrees as more than the requisite paperwork that allows them to look for jobs. Learning beyond curriculum One of the opportunities of using games in coursework is the ability to bring perspectives of game-makers and designers into the classroom. One such rare opportunity that we were offered this year was to welcome the makers of the virtual reality experience Assassins Creed NexusVR as part of a session that allowed students to engage with people from the industry. The session, delivered by Lisa Ridley, Senior AI programmer, at Ubisoft’s Reflections Studio in Newcastle, UK, went into great detail explaining how the iconic franchise Assassins Creed was reimagined as a virtual reality experience while also highlighting the challenges in making such an ambitious project playable on a device like Meta Quest 2 and 3. There was a lot more to be learnt from the Ubisoft team as students could pick up on aspects of marketing and promotion of games as well as approaches to the development and execution of social media campaigns to promote upcoming games. Policymakers and government are yet to engage with the gaming industry’s call to create necessary standards for game development, e-sports degrees and infrastructure for vocational and skill-based training However, at the end of the session, what caught me by surprise was not just the opportunity to learn from one of the largest game-makers in the world, but rather the sheer number of questions students wanted to ask. The interaction lasted for over an hour and spanned a wide variety of questions — most beyond the boundaries of the reading materials from the courses I had taught but within the domain of the larger discipline. The discussions and deliberations were both deep and nuanced as I watched how students adapted and bridged what was discussed in the classroom with what was being presented by the experts. If such interactions and commitments to learning are possible then we must ask our current education sector: If world-leading organisations and game-makers are willing to view their games as not just sites of play but as opportunities for teaching and learning, why are we holding back from creating the right openings and connections from such associations? Also, what more can educational institutions expect of their students beyond a self-driven desire to learn and an in-depth engagement with the materials of the course? Theory and Ideas Games and game-based content if imagined and complemented with theory and ideas in the right way can be used to teach much more than resource allocation and strategy building in business schools (as is the norm currently). In the process, it might instil in students a desire to carve their journeys of learning. If world-leading organisations and game-makers are willing to view their games as not just sites of play but as opportunities for teaching and learning, why are we holding back from creating the right openings and connections from such associations? In my decade-long time in higher education, I have relied on games to convey a wide variety of ideas — fromgames like Beecarbonize to help students visualise the extent of the climate crisis on our hands to more complex games like Detroit Become Human to get them to critically think of workers’ rights in the gig economy. As we begin to think about what education and institutions of higher learning mean and offer in the era of Generative AI, one of the key distinctions lies in the experience we offer. If it is a meaningful and value-driven experience, then few things push the boundary to the maximum the way games and play-based activities do. (The writer is a Lecturer of Communications, Digital Media Sociology at the University of Exeter, UK. He is the author of Gaming Culture(s) in India: Digital Play in Everyday Life and the just released,The 21st Century in a Hundred Games) Follow Us : Tags Digital Media Sociology Indian Students Lisa Ridley New Education Policy Related News Number of Indian students applying to UK universities drops 20%, reveals report Video games as art: Resisting crowdsourced review platforms, anti-woke culture Northern Arizona University in collaboration launches summer five-week program Excessive screen time weakens children’s vocabulary; video games most harmful: StudyFormer department store on famous Scottish shopping street put on market