490040 PS Teaching and Learning (2025S)

Contents:
The course Game-based Learning and Gameful Design discusses theoretical backgrounds and practical application of game-based learning and gamification, primarily in the context of school teaching but also across broader application areas. It is held in cooperation with the Human Computer Interaction Group at the Faculty of Informatics at TU Wien. Participants collaborate with technical students and engage in a `design as research' approach as they work on a series of six different practical game-based learning and gamification tasks. These tasks are tackled by mixed student groups. Preceding and following each task, there is a joint workshop session. Development will be handled by TU Wien students. No prior technical knowledge is necessary to participate in this course.

Goals:
The goals of the course are:
to convey competencies in using game design as a means of knowledge construction for teaching
to understand the many potential applications of game-based learning, gameful design and gamification for schools as well as recognise their limits and pitfalls
to model real-world problems in serious game design and gamification
to understand modern iterative, agile design and development methodologies and recognise their strengths and weaknesses
to unlock creativity and learn to evaluate ideas in the context of game-based learning.

Methods:
Students conceptualise, design and reflect on game-based learning and gamification applications. They also gain insights on the development, which is done by the technical students. The emphasis of the course is on different forms of sketching and prototyping design problems, ranging from analogue to digital prototypes and resulting in differentiated design insights. This also means that prototypes are meant only as a vehicle and students do not work towards a finished product. Student prototypes also engage with and feed into state-of-the-art research projects during the course.