Videogames, like other new media, reflect and shape culture and are influenced by societal attitude shifts. We conducted a qualitative close-reading analysis of queer representation in the AAA historical-fiction series Assassin's Creed and the historical antecedents thereof to explore (a) the traditional marginalization of queer-identifying folks in (b) the context of growing societal acceptance within the (inter)national zeitgeist. In our examination of the developer's reaction operationalized as observable shifts in developers’ design choices, we observed an increase in representation that aligns with the shift in social attitudes toward queer folks over the last 15 years. With respect to the historical antecedents, we discovered a misalignment between the in-game portrayal of queer folks and acceptance thereof vis a vis the available historical record.

Forty-four states have recently taken formal policy steps to limit how teachers can teach about so-called "divisive issues." This paper examines teachers' perceptions of what they need to be prepared to teach in states where "divisive issues" legislation exists. Teacher interview data where restrictive legislation exists were used to explore what inservice teachers need to teach within the constraints of states' divisive issues legislation, and what teacher preparation programs should focus on when preparing new teachers to do the same. Analysis revealed, among other things, that all feel they need clear guidance from their district, and better training.

Purpose The purpose of this paper reporting an exploratory pilot study is to examine how participant engagement in design thinking varies when playing and fixing (playfixing) three partially complete games (broken games). Design/methodology/approach The data for this study consist of transcripts of five playfixing sessions with a total of 16 participants. Each session focused on one of three games. The authors used Winn’s (2009) design-play-experience framework to analyze features of each game that might relate to differences in design thinking. Next, the authors coded each playfixing session’s transcript to identify patterns of design thinking. Finally, these findings were used to make conjectures about how design features and flaws might encourage particular forms of design thinking. Findings The findings indicate how playfixing tabletop games with varied levels of complexity, playability and rule definition lead to different patterns of design thinking. Originality/value This is a first step toward understanding how the constraints associated with various elements of broken games might direct participants toward desired modes of design thinking and more broadly, contributes to the literature on the educational uses of game making.

James Gee's work at the intersection of literacy, education, and game studies has explored how videogame affinity spaces are examples of how good teaching and learning often occur outside of schooling. His work can be safely characterized as influential in these fields. For instance, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy helped catalyze a lasting surge of interest in videogame studies. Game studies currently represent a diverse group of scholars that continually push the field into promising spaces. With our eyes on these promising spaces, we interviewed Gee on the topic of what is-and should be-the future of game studies. Gee discussed how the future of game studies would be well-advised to explore ways to network multiple experiences and technologies-including the real world-to focus on how to make people healthier, more prosocial, and better able to collaborate. This interview has been edited for conciseness and clarity.

Background Videogames are widely considered effective learning environments, with powerful lessons relevant to those who design teaching and learning experiences. Violent videogames, however, are often left out of such conversations. Intervention In this context, we examine Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (MW) as a violent videogame that might suggest design principles useful for effecting emotional experiences, a key element to the formation of memories and therefore learning. Methods Through narrative description of two missions from MW and interleaved discussion of its mechanics, we contend even violent videogames might inform the design of interactive learning experiences. Results We highlight how MW’s mechanics (a) are designed to constrain player’s actions to facilitate visceral experiences, while being (b) thoughtfully juxtaposed with typical first-person shooter mechanics, to (c) create opportunities to develop what we call civic empathy, the ability to understand—even share to some extent—the feelings of another person with whom one shares a common affiliation with and responsibility to one or more social groups. We also highlight the concept of global civic empathy, in which one includes the world’s citizens as co-members of a global community. Discussion Learning from simulations and games is often discussed through the lens of actions made available to players. Our contribution is the flip side of that coin—what a game or simulation prevents players from doing—is equally important. Limitations We played these missions ourselves. We therefore limit our conclusions to our own experiences, though we contend our findings may inform the design of learning games and simulations. Conclusion In simplest terms, our theory of action is this: (1) Constraining mechanics (2) create juxtaposition and cognitive dissonance, which in turn (3) create emotional experiences that serve as rich sites for complex learning (empathy development) to take place.

In this study, we describe an activity in which participants play and fix broken games - tabletop games with ambiguous rules or mechanics - through the use of collaborative talk (CT). The playfixing activity provides a useful context for examining how participants think together and collectively build understanding through redesigning an incomplete game. We qualitatively analysed a small group of participants' talk as they playfixed a broken game, Pollutaplop. We examined their utterances through a framework of CT strands that included participating, understanding, and managing. Findings suggest the majority (54%) of participants' talk was collaboratively oriented and served mostly to manage game play and redesign. Moreover, participants used different personal pronouns to shift perspectives in collectively understanding the task. This study contributes to the design of future learning experiences that invite the use of CT and foster the development of abilities to co-design on complex tasks.

In this chapter, the authors demonstrate how teachers can use graphic novels in classroom spaces to support student learning and literacy outcomes while simultaneously valuing unique meaning making potential of graphic novels. Specifically, the authors address ways in which graphic novels can be used to promote history and social studies learning while capitalizing on graphic novels' complex, sophisticated, and multimodal nature. They suggest that rather than using graphic novels to trick kids into liking reading and learning content, graphic novels can be leveraged to promote deep, critical thinking about history and social studies. To accomplish this, the authors propose combining the opportunities for practice framework with a social semiotic view of multimodality as a means of supporting students' reading of historical fiction and non-fiction graphic novels.

Designing games from the ground up is a popular activity for helping students think in designerly ways. Despite their benefits, such game design activities may place higher-than-anticipated demands on cognitive and institutional resources. In an effort to alleviate these demands, this study explored how playing and fixing partially completed games may elicit engagement with designerly thinking. This paper reports on the results of examining participants' talk during a playfixing activity in which, rather than designing wholesale, participants mended incomplete or “broken” tabletop games. Results suggest participants focused on problem identification, demonstrated quick and sustained engagement with thinking like designers, and drew from designerly modes non-linearly. These results illustrate that broken games may hold potential as accessible alternatives for helping learners think in designerly ways.

Designing games from the ground up is a popular activity for helping students think in designerly ways. Despite their benefits, such game design activities may place higher-than-anticipated demands on cognitive and institutional resources. In an effort to alleviate these demands, this study explored how playing and fixing partially completed games may elicit engagement with designerly thinking. This paper reports on the results of examining participants' talk during a playfixing activity in which, rather than designing wholesale, participants mended incomplete or “broken” tabletop games. Results suggest participants focused on problem identification, demonstrated quick and sustained engagement with thinking like designers, and drew from designerly modes non-linearly. These results illustrate that broken games may hold potential as accessible alternatives for helping learners think in designerly ways.

Building on the education community's longstanding interest in videogames for learning, and in response to continued calls for more engaging pedagogy in history classrooms, some developers have introduced history-oriented videogames designed specifically to fit within the institutional and resource constraints of traditional classrooms. Nevertheless, little empirical evidence exists concerning such made-for-school history-oriented videogames. Leveraging a view of game mechanics as a form of language, and guided by the assumption from discourse analysis that language operates as a tool offering affordances and constraints for doing work in the world, we conducted a content analysis to identify opportunities to practice historical thinking and reasoning in the made-for-school history-oriented videogame Mission US. We found several in-game moments that invited the use of disciplinary skills, though few that required them. Confirming previous research on videogames for learning, our findings suggest the game may be more appropriately leveraged not on its own but as one part of a broader teaching and learning ecology. We highlight two mechanics, those pertaining to in-game, map-based navigation, and in-game, historically relevant trading, as holding promise for the design of future made-for-school history-oriented videogames. We suggest these findings are valuable to teachers, teacher educators, developers, and researchers.

Framing, implementing, and engaging youth in authentic scientific inquiry are highly valued in science education; however, we have very limited knowledge of the nature and use of tools that accomplish these. Therefore, we proposed that board game design is a meaningful tool for engaging youth in understanding environmental issues. We reported findings from an educational board game design workshop based on real world issues for teens aged 13-17 years conducted at a large public library Makerspace. Using qualitative methods, we analysed the teens' process of making one such game, Pollutaplop, to understand its merits and argued that board game design nurtured the development of tools for inquiry. In response to the recent surge of interest in creating tools for learning about natural systems, we found that designing board games in authentic contexts engaged youth in building models as well as systems thinking. Intent gamers, including youth, might be well positioned to appreciate the complexities of both games and the contexts they are set in.

Purpose - This paper aims to explore how making tabletop board games elicited adolescents' design thinking during their participation in a summer game design camp at their local library. Design/methodology/approach - This study leverages qualitative approaches to coding transcripts of participants' talk. This study uses the design thinking framework from the Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University as provisional codes to identify andmake sense of participants' verbalized design activity. Findings - This study found that the making context of designing tabletop board games elicited a high frequency of design talk in participants, evidenced by both quantitative and qualitative reports of the data. Additionally, participants in large measure obviated constraints on their design activity imposed by linear conceptions of the design thinking model this study introduces, instead of moving fluidly across design modes. Finally, participants' prior experiences in both life and in regard to games significantly influenced their design study. Originality/value - This study highlights the unique affordances of making-centric approaches to designing tabletop games in particular, such as participants' quick and sustained engagement in the study of design. This study also highlights the need for conceptions of design thinking specific to designing games.

The public schoolhouse is one of the few remaining public spaces in which citizens may routinely gather to discuss controversial issues. Furthermore, it is social studies classrooms and teachers, in particular, that bear the moral imperative to ensure such civic discourse takes place. Nevertheless, many social studies teachers refrain from centering such discussions in their classrooms, often for fear of reprisal should these discussions go awry. It thus falls to social studies teacher educators to rethink how we prepare future teachers. This paper reports on a study that incorporated digital simulations of controversial issues into three preservice social studies teacher preparation methods courses to help develop high-leverage practices associated with leading whole-group discussions. Case study analysis suggests participants developed greater fluency with the teacher moves they practiced in the simulation. Accordingly, participants’ developed greater confidence with and perceived importance of facilitating discussions of controversial issues in their future classrooms. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

This paper explores how the use of digital practice spaces (DPSs) can inform teacher preparation through a reimagining of clinical practice in teacher preparation by addressing the question: what roles might DPSs play in the ecology of apprenticeship opportunities for future educators? We leveraged AACTE’s Essential Proclamations and Tenets for Highly Effective Clinical Educator Preparation as an analytical framework to examine our own experiences using DPSs in our teacher education coursework. We discuss the alignment between these proclamations and the theoretical, conceptual, and practical underpinnings of DPSs. Finally, we consider the remaining proclamations that represent the horizons of DPSs within teacher preparation, a task we undertook as a set of informed provocations, envisioning how DPSs could be designed to support the proclamations not currently supported.

This mixed-methods study explored the factors secondary history teachers use to determine historical content for their classrooms and the degree of perceived control in decision-making. Through a survey (N = 260) and follow-up interviews (n = 23), we found that secondary history teachers in the United States ranked historical significance most highly in their curricular decision-making, but the extent to which teachers felt they were able to exert control over curricular decisions was influenced by required assessments and other contextual factors. Nevertheless, many teachers also prioritized student interest and relevance when choosing historical content. Interviews revealed complexity in teachers' thinking and additional context-specific (dis)incentives (e.g., fear of controversy) regarding curricular choices. Implications for teacher education and policy are emphasized.