Learning Outcomes of Immersive Thematic Play

While there are different ways that a game can work in a classroom context, what I find most fascinating are those that create some sense of immersion in a thematic world – real or imagined. I think it’s fair to say these are few and far between. Some examples and related experiments I’ve come across over the years have included:

• John Hunter and The World Peace Game, an immersive multi-day simulation for students exploring geopolitics,
• an English teacher who ran a unit drawing on The Hunger Games, where students took on the roles of tributes, blogging ‘in-character’ over several weeks (I wrote about this back in 2016),
• an essay called ‘Adventures on Arnold’s island’ by Arnold Greenberg, a teacher who framed his classroom as an island to explore ideas of self-government with his students,
• Jane Elliot’s (in)famous 1968 ‘Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes’ experiment, exploring racial discrimination with her all-white third-grade class,
• the Mantle of the Expert technique developed by Dorothy Heathcote, where students take on roles of experts and are given a team assignment within a fictional context

Each of these was inspired by different source material and aims to achieve different objectives. In that way, they illustrate the range and diversity of thematic experiences that can take place in a classroom, and the possible learning outcomes that can result.

I’m going to suggest a handful of different types of objectives that thematic games can achieve. While any one game may only focus on one or two of these, they are fall within the scope of experiences possible through immersive play.

Engaging Interest and Stimulating Curiosity

Two of the key aspects of these experiences are the creation of a fictional world (possibly based on the real world, possibly not) and taking on roles within that world. Both the world itself and the adoption of roles are powerful means of engaging students. In Terra Fabula, students create the physical landscape of their own world and are immediately invested with a sense of personal connection and ownership that draws them into the story.

Delivering Content Knowledge

As they play, the flow of the game can introduce students to information that builds their content knowledge. For example, in Ararat, as part of the whole class, they might discover that Melbourne was the wealthiest city in the world in 1860, or learn about the invention of clipper ships when they have the opportunity to book passage on one. Through their personal narrative, a student may have a backstory in which their character has a governess, or may be at sea and experience the rituals that captains perform when crossing the Equator. While delivering this type of knowledge is possible in this type of game, there are important considerations:

• if the knowledge is individualised rather than delivered to the whole class then it relies on large numbers of unique content-carrying components (often cards)
• care must be taken to encourage students to actually engage with the content rather than simply ignoring it and focusing on the game mechanics (this might be achieved by having them discuss events with other students, or write diary entries)
• content tends to be bite-sized and specific – if large amounts of general information need to be delivered, an immersive game is unlikely to be the most efficient way to do so.

Teaching and Rehearsing Skills

Similarly to delivering content knowledge, students may need to use skills as they play the game. Often there will be literacy and numeracy skills required, which is one reason that these games are often seen as interdisciplinary. Playing Terra Fabula requires students to write several short narratives, while playing Ararat requires students to practice arithmetic in order to keep a ledger of their savings.

Along the same lines, Andrew Olimpi describes creating a whole-class roleplaying game in his Latin class based on Four Against the Titans, which provided students with many opportunities to read, write and speak Latin vocabulary.

Similarly to the comments above, if skill rehearsal is your primary goal it would most likely be better served by another type of activity. However, if you are creating a thematic game, there are always opportuities to ‘weave in’ skills that students are learning.

Creating Deeper Understanding and Empathy

It’s rare for a game to create a particularly emotional response, but some carefully crafted play experiences can explore the human condition as compellingly as any other medium.

While not necessarily creating extended fictional worlds, I find the work of Brenda Romero on her ‘The Mechanic is the Message’ games particularly inspring. Both her well-known ‘Train’ (in which players are unknowingly ferrying passengers to the Auschwitz concentration camp) and the ‘Middle Passage’ game she describes creating for her daughter ask players to sit with uncomfortable truths in a way that fosters new understanding profound empathy.

I was thinking about these ideas when I created Terra Fabula. My express intent was to design a play-based experience that would build a strong sense of identification between a player and a fictional Indigenous community, and then use that connection to give players just a shadow of appreciation for the horror, despair and powerlessness that those communities felt in the face of colonial oppression.

Challenging and Changing Worldviews

Considering the kind of empathy and understanding that these types of games might aim to foster, it is natural that a final objective might be the fundamental, long-term change that can result from those ‘epiphany’ moments we sometimes experience. Indeed, while this is often outside the scope of most traditional school curricula, shaping students’ worldviews to prepare them for happy and meaningful lives is an aspirational goal for many educators.

One of the best documented examples of this is John Hunter’s creation of The World Peace Game. Originally developed for his own fourth grade class, this has become a global phenomenon, with students all around the world participating in a week-long immersive simulation of geopolitics. For many students, it’s a powerful experience that gives them a new perspective on the world and their role within it.

What more ambitious goals might we have for the games we bring into our classrooms than stimulating our students’ curiosity, building empathy, and giving them a new perspective?