Bacalja, A., Nash, B., Clutton M., De Kruiff, J., & White, B. (2024). Designing Game-Centred Curricula: A Critical Inquiry - Ludic Language Pedagogy

Metadata

Author: Alex Bacalja, Brady Nash, Mark Clutton, Josh De Kruiff, Benjamin White.
Reviewed by: Anton Vegel, James York.
Volume and page numbers: 6 (p. 1 – 20)
Date of publication: 2024/2/1
Keywords: Digital games, Curriculum Inquiry, Pedagogy, Schooling, L1 English, Literacies.
Cite: Bacalja, A., Nash, B., Clutton M., De Kruiff, J., & White, B. (2024). Designing Game-Centred Curricula: A Critical Inquiry. Ludic Language Pedagogy, 6, 1-20. https://doi.org/10.55853/llp_V5Art3

Background: Digital games as technologies for teaching and learning are finding their way into schools with increasing frequency, raising questions about how teachers plan for their use.
Aim: This paper utilises curriculum inquiry to explore the experiences of teachers designing curricula that centre digital games for play and study.
Methods: We employ a memory work methodology to analyse four English teachers’ reflections, emphasizing the value of reflecting on everyday actions to understand the complexity of professional lives and the situated nature of knowledge.
Results: Our paper reveals that designing and implementing digital game-centred curricula is complex. The analysis of themes related to engaging with students’ lifeworlds, planning for skills and knowledge, the challenges of play, and issues of access and equity, suggest use of technology for school learning is always inseparable from other phenomena, such as teaching methods, purposes, values and contexts.
Conclusion: Those engaged in the design of game-centred curricula are in a constant state of negotiation which neither starts nor ends with the production of material artefacts.