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Digital Game Pedagogy: Teaching with Games

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Choosing and Using Digital Games in the Classroom

Part of the book series: Advances in Game-Based Learning ((AGBL))

Abstract

In this chapter we see how pedagogy connects with videogames by looking at games through the lens of several known and accepted instructional theories and models. Using the premise that “good” games already embody sound pedagogy we should have little trouble mapping instructional theories onto game designs even if the incorporation of those theories was not deliberate. From these examinations we can see that learning and instructional design are compatible with good game design and vice versa. We then further expand our growing vocabulary by unpacking a typical game to see the elements that make it work.

“In all the works on pedagogy that ever I read—and they have been many, big, and heavy—I don’t remember that any one has advocated a system of teaching by practical jokes, mostly cruel. That, however, describes the method of our great teacher, Experience.”

Charles Sanders Peirce

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Notes

  1. 1.

    We are describing direct instruction in the general sense, rather than the proprietary system developed by Zig Engelmann in 1964 (Engelmann & Carnine, 1982).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mount Royal University, Calgary, AB, Canada

    Katrin Becker

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  1. Katrin Becker
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Becker, K. (2017). Digital Game Pedagogy: Teaching with Games. In: Choosing and Using Digital Games in the Classroom. Advances in Game-Based Learning. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12223-6_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12223-6_3

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-12222-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-12223-6

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