Create, Innovate & Evaluate in Higher Education

Games Based Situated Learning – A Contradiction?

games-ED (Games Based Learning)

Marrying up to Situated Learning Theory

The first part of the series will introduce briefly some of the theories that underpin our products and games based learning at large. The main focus of this series is Games Based Situated Learning, which we have discussed before, but several years ago and very briefly. I will also try to uncover whether Situated Learning can actually occur through games and simulations, i.e. is that situated enough?

I will then introduce one of our games-ED products: the learning simulation Sustainaville. I will explain the simulation and how it is used in a workshop including the plan > do > review stages.

The final and main part of the series will essentially be a judgement of Sustainaville using some theoretical principles outlined in the first part of the series (put forward by Jan Herrington and Ron Oliver, 1995). This checklist can be used to judge other serious games and learning simulations in a similar way. We will back up our judgements with both qualitative and quantitative feedback from our workshops.

Following on from a recent post The Pedagogies in Game Based Learning, this article will look at how Gagné’s Nine Events of Instruction can be applied to game based learning.