`This class was great! I loved it and I would recommend it to anyone interested in education and game mechanics. You really only get into the basics of both, but it was eye-opening for me.
“Designing games for learning” basically means that you'll look at what defines a game, what defines learning, and how you can combine the two. The final project is a group project in which you create your own learning game with a group of about 4 people for a given age-group and subject. On a weekly basis, you mainly read for class, discuss the readings in small groups at your table, and then report back to the class as a big group. Sometimes the professor lectures, but only on a small section of the reading. We also did a few hands-on activities with some of the guest lecturers who came, and the stuff they talked about was always super interesting.
The readings were pretty easy, probably around 10-20 pages a week. None of it was complicated. I recommend doing the readings when they're assigned, because you'll be expected to use them in the papers/presentations. We also had to play games as our homework pretty regularly.
Every two weeks or so we would have to do a 2 page paper or a 5-9 minute recorded presentation about the topic we learned in class. The rubrics for these were extremely clear and Professor Wilkens graded them fairly. As long as you take the assignment seriously it’s very easy to get an A in the class.

#tCFfall22