This investigation examined how to support students in creating learning designs for specific learning goals in analogue and digital games as a means of learning. The study also explored the learning trajectories that emerged in the digital games created by the student learning-game designers. The DBR study was developed through three iterations over two years, involving teachers and students in co-design processes. Together with the teachers, an overall learning design supported the learning process for students by inviting them to be their own learning designers as they designed digital learning games for specific learning goals in cross-disciplinary subject matters. The findings were that the students succeeded in developing and implementing specific learning goals in their games. The students also developed learning trajectories through the games by designing various learning and evaluation opportunities for the player/learner playing the game. Games Learning Society Conference, Madison, Wisconsin. August 2016

1. How Student Game Designers
Design Learning into Games
Charlotte Lærke Weitze
Assistant Professor, ILD-lab: IT and Learning Design
Dapartment of Learning and Philosophy
Aalborg University, Copenhagen Campus, Denmark
Games Learning Society 12
Madison – August 18th 2016

2. • Investigation:
– How to support students in creating learning designs for
specific learning goals in analogue and digital games as a
means of learning
– Learning trajectories emerged in the digital games created
by the student learning-game designers
• Findings:
– Students succeeded in developing and implementing
specific learning goals in their games
– Students developed learning trajectories through the
games by designing various learning and evaluation
opportunities for the player/learner playing the game
How Student Game Designers Design Learning into Games

3. Research Design Aim
• Within a big Game (a gamified process), this project
experimented with letting the students make small digital
games for learning and aimed at embedding specific
learning goals in the games. The aim was not only to work
with the creative game design processes, but also, in a
dedicated way, to scaffold and evaluate the learning
process for the novice teachers and students within game
design. The purpose was also to facilitate the learning
process for the other players/fellow-students who would
later play the games.
• This gamified learning design should facilitate a deep
learning process within the subject matters through the
creation of the learning games
How Student Game Designers Design Learning into Games

4. How Student Game Designers Design Learning into Games
Weitze, C.L. (2015a).

5. Participants and Setting
• 1st and 3rd: Adult students from two full time upper secondary general education program classes
• 2nd: Children in the 7th grade - Creative use of IT
Project
Iteration
Period Participan
ts
Form Subject matters Pedagogical Approach:
Constructionism & PBL
Game tool
1st
iteration
Spring
2014
17 adult
students, 3
teachers
3 student
workshops, 4
hours,
1-week
interval
History, religion,
and social
studies; fixed
learning goals
Fixed overall learning goals.
Part of the evaluation process.
Students had already been
introduced to the subject.
Game Salad
2nd
iteration
Fall
2014
14
children in
7th grade,
1 teacher
1 student
workshop, 2
hours
Own choice of
subject matter
and learning
goals
Problem-based approach.
Students chose subjects and
found content themselves.
Scratch
3rd
iteration
Spring
2015
19 adult
students, 2
teachers
3 student
workshops, 5
hours,
1-week
interval
History, English
as a second
language, and
source criticism;
fixed learning
goals
Fixed overall learning goals.
Problem-based approach.
Students had to find
information about the subject
during game development,
learning in that process.
Scratch &
RGB maker
Table 1: The three iterations in the project (Spring 2014 to Spring 2015).
How Student Game Designers Design Learning into Games

6. The structured game design process
How Student Game Designers Design Learning into Games
CLWeitze (2014)

7. Workshops
• Each team developed learning-game concepts
• Documented learning goals for the game
• Students brainstormed to create games - encompass learning goals
• The Smiley Model
How Student Game Designers Design Learning into Games
CLWeitze (2016). Smiley Model – game design model for creating engaging learning games

8. How Student Game Designers Design Learning into Games

9. Prototypes - materials for learning
How Student Game Designers Design Learning into Games

10. Learning design processes contained within one another
How Student Game Designers Design Learning into Games
Weitze, C.L. (2015a).

11. CLWetze, 2017

12. • Designing learning games, creating learning situations and building learning content into
these games
• Discussed the subject matter, found content, negotiated how to implement learning
• Reached their learning goals
• explain, discuss, and critically think about the concepts from the curriculum
How Student Game Designers Design Learning into Games
Students’ learning trajectories when building small digital learning games
Weitze, C.L. (2015a).

13. How Student Game Designers Design Learning into Games
Imagining the Unknown – First Iteration
• Difficulties
• Understanding learning design concepts
• Describing the learning design for the game
• Mainly quiz games
• Difficulties in imagining a mental model for how to build a learning game
• Teachers asked for a learning game example in the actual game tool
• Findings
• The quality and characteristics of the learning situations built into the
games - important for the depth of the students’ learning processes
• Investigate:
• How can students be supported to create a learning design for specific
learning goals in analogue and digital games as a means of learning?
• What learning trajectories emerge in those digital games that succeed in
creating learning events in games beyond quiz games?

14. Creating Supportive Artefacts for Students Learning by Designing Games
• Two artefacts were constructed as support
• Simple learning game example (Scratch)
• Related mind-map - how the learning design was illustrated in the learning game example
• Purpose
• Clear concepts of learning design
• Discuss learning goals, learning activities, evaluation in the game
• Help the students start reflecting on how to design their own games to facilitate specific learning goals
How Student Game Designers Design Learning into Games
Mind-map illustrating and discussing the learning game example.

15. • New assignments in 2nd and 3rd iterations
• No quiz-games
• Facilitate subject matter learning
• Evaluate
• Create learning situations or a small communities of practice
• Student game designers were asked to describe
• What can the characters do?
• What does the character learn?
• What does the player/learner learn?
• 2. & 3. iteration tried this out – it worked!
How Student Game Designers Design Learning into Games

16. Choice, Development, and Implementation of Learning Goals
• Findings:
• Helped the students create a mental model of a learning situation
• Students found content for their learning goals
• Designed learning situations and narrative in their games
• Students learned in this process
How Student Game Designers Design Learning into Games

17. Result -> more complex games -> more cognitive complex learning possibilities
How Student Game Designers Design Learning into Games
CL. Weitze (Oct, 2016).
Quiz

18. Inviting the player/learner to be an apprentice – to learn
• Teaching and learning trajectories for/with the non-human actors inside the small digital games
• For example
• Questions and conversation were exchanged
• Conversations between two non-human actors in the roles of student and teacher
Examples of Learning Activities and Learning Trajectories in the Digital GamesHow Student Game Designers Design Learning into Games
You can use Events ,
when you for example:
would like to use buttons
to change something
and there are also
many other possibilities
Game/story about how to build in scratch Game about human rights

19. Learning-by-doing
• Create small learning situations in the games
• Build the learning activities into the game mechanics
• Type of knowledge facilitated through the games
• Declarative knowledge
• Procedural knowledge
• Possible for the players/learners to do things that they learned in the games
Examples of Learning Activities and Learning Trajectories in the Digital GamesHow Student Game Designers Design Learning into Games

20. Learning by experience
• E.g.: Character that embodied a person from history
• Experiencing - identifying with this person’s situation and experiences
• Learned about the historical period and historical events
• Various choices when meeting other characters in specific contexts
• Different questions they could ask other characters
• Character could choose to do in the game
Examples of Learning Activities and Learning Trajectories in the Digital GamesHow Student Game Designers Design Learning into Games

21. Learning from ‘direct information’ - narratives
• Information about the historical period and historical events relevant to this context in the learning situation in the game
Examples of Learning Activities and Learning Trajectories in the Digital GamesHow Student Game Designers Design Learning into Games
Or information simply added to the narrative…
You go into a world and a story begins

22. Learning from authentic hints
• Hints on how the historical person could overcome a challenge in the game world
• E.g. travelling on the Underground Railroad - helping enslaved people flee from the South to the North
• Determine whether a house was a safe house, with people who would help
• Solution was not supplied directly - only in hints
Examples of Learning Activities and Learning Trajectories in the Digital GamesHow Student Game Designers Design Learning into Games
Later …

23. Learning through stealth assessment
• Assessment happening as part of the story through real (game) world consequences
• Find and learn this information in the game
• The player/learner could choose which path to take in the game – but specific pieces of knowledge needed to move on in
the game
Examples of Learning Activities and Learning Trajectories in the Digital GamesHow Student Game Designers Design Learning into Games
Harriet Tubman

24. Learning by consequence
• Learn about habits, human rights traditions, and culture from that period
• Historical character asking historically inappropriate question, given the historical
period and the characters’ positions in the situation in the game
• Character was set back
Examples of Learning Activities and Learning Trajectories in the Digital GamesHow Student Game Designers Design Learning into Games
Learning from just-in-time additional knowledge
• Additional knowledge and information about that particular subject or period - more
detailed information about the subject

25. • Conclusion
• Supplement to teachers guidance and game design documents:
• Learning game example combined with learning design concepts
• Created and implemented specific learning goals in their games
• Games they designed should
• Facilitate learning about the subject matter and learning goal
• The facilitated learning should be evaluated
• Encouraged to create learning situations/ community of practice in their game
• Future experiments
• New learning-game examples involving - learning trajectories as inspiration
Examples of Learning Activities and Learning Trajectories in the Digital GamesHow Student Game Designers Design Learning into Games

26. References
• Weitze, C.L. (2017). Learning and Design Processes in a Gamified Learning Design in which Students Create Curriculum-Based Digital Learning Games;
Nordgold, Ild-Lab – Nordisk Antologi , - Submitted 1st September 2015
• Weitze, C.L. (2016a), in press nov16) Designing for Learning and Play - The Smiley Model as Framework. Interaction Design and Architecture(s) Journal
- IxD&A, special issue: Player and Learner eXperience, 2016.
• Weitze, C.L (2016b). How Student Game Designers Design Learning into Games. In Proceedings of the games, learning, and society conference.
Pittsburgh, PA: ETC.
• Weitze, C. L. (2016c). Emerging Learning Trajectories when Students Implement Learning into Digital Games, Proceedings of The 10th European
Conference on Games Based Learning, 6 - 7 October 2016, Paisley, Scotland.
• Weitze, C.L. (2015a). Learning and Motivational Processes When Students Design Curriculum-Based Digital Learning Games, Proceedings of the 9th
European Conference on Games Based Learning (ECGBL), Nord-Trondelag University College, Steinkjer, Norway, 8– 9 October 2015. Academic
Conferences and Publishing International Limited
• Weitze, C.L. (2015b). Designing for Learning and Play - The Smiley model as framework,CHItaly 2015 - Public, private and community-based
interaction, Paper presented at: PALX – Player And Learner Experience – Can We Design For Both? Rome, Italy, 28. September 2015. Retrieved from
http://palx.inf.unibz.it/papers/Weitze.pdf
• Weitze, C. L. (2014a) Developing Goals and Objectives for Gameplay and Learning. In Learning, Education and Games: Volume One: Curricular and
Design Considerations. Ed. Karen Schrier. Vol. 1, Carnegie Mellon University ETC Press, 2014. p. 225–249.
• Weitze, C. L. (2014b) “An Experiment on How Adult Students Can Learn by Designing Engaging Learning Games”, Meaningful Play 2014: Conference
Proceedings, University of Michigan Press.
• Weitze, C. L. (2014c) “Experimenting on How to Create a Sustainable Gamified Learning Design That Supports Adult Students When Learning Through
Designing Learning Games”, Proceedings of the 8th European Conference on Games Based Learning, Berlin, Germany, 9–10 October, 2014. Vol. 2
ACPIL, p. 594–603.
• Weitze, C.L. & Ørngreen, R. (2012) “Concept Model for Designing Engaging and Motivating Games for Learning: The Smiley-model”, [online],
Electronic Proceedings in Meaningful Play Conference 2012, MSU, http://meaningfulplay.msu.edu/proceedings2012/ mp2012submission148.pdf
(retrieved on 15.06.15).
• Weitze, C.L. (2011): Concept development of a motivating and engaging game for learning music, Unpublished Master’s Thesis in Digital Design and
Communication, IT-University, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Contact:
Charlotte Lærke Weitze
@CharlotteWeitze
Charlotte@weitze.dk
cw@learning.aau.dk
How Student Game Designers Design Learning into Games