What is the teachers’ role when students learn through design of learning games in a scaffolded gamified learning environment?

The aim of this research project is to create a reusable and flexible gamified learning design where the students are learning subject matters through the design of digital learning games. The students are their own learning designers forming teams that create games. The teams also peer review/ play test each others games as a way to qualify the learning taking place around as well as inside the games they are building. The discussion is focusing on how the chosen pedagogical approach is framed within the gamified environment as well as on how the teachers can guide and scaffold the learning process taking place during the workshops. The project uses an iterative design- based research approach with the teachers and students as co-designers. The learning theoretical foundations for the research is constructionism. In this approach meaning can be constructed through the manipulation of materials, which facilitates reflection and new ways of thinking. The aim is to enable deep and motivational learning processes for the students. In the first iterations of this experiment the scaffolding has been structured in a way that did not leave much for the teachers to do. But findings in the research suggest several areas within this gamified environment that will enable a deeper learning process with the help of the teacher’s guidance and formal assessment. This guidance could take outset in concepts from community of practice. This project contributes to educational research by investigating how the use of pre-build learning games in education can be taken a step further into the building of learning games while implementing subject matters from curriculum, not only focussing on the creative game design process. The aim of the form of this learning design is to scaffold the novice students and teachers in the process, as well as leaving an open space for the teachers to implement different relevant subject matters.