Facilitating Teacher Students’ Innovation Competence through Problem-Based Game Design Processes

The aim of this paper is to describe how new teacher students develop innovation competence through problem-based game design processes by participating in an intro camp. The intro camp was held for 350 new teacher students at a Danish university college in 2011, which were asked to solve the real-life problems of local schools by designing game solutions to be presented for and assessed by participating school directors and pupils. Based upon a pragmatist theoretical framework, we conceptualize the students’ development of innovation competence in relation to creative problem-solving, game frames and the interplay of different knowledge domains “inside” and “outside” of teacher education. By taking a mixed methods approach, we combine qualitative and quantitative methodologies for studying our case. This involved observations and interviews with selected groups as well as a post-camp survey with all the students. In the analysis, we focus on two analytical themes that relate to the teacher students’ problem-based game design processes and their experience of becoming future innovative practitioners. The paper concludes by discussing future perspectives on the use of problem-based game design for developing innovation competence – both within and beyond the context of teacher education.