Fostering teachers’ creativity through the creation of GBL scenarios

Abstract

Social, economic and global changes make it difficult to predict what the future might hold. Creativity is one possible response to these changes. Indeed, creative skills enable students to face the complex nature of life. As a result, creativity has become significant in education, and is regarded as an important objective to be addressed in the curriculum.

Nevertheless, creativity is not always promoted in schools. Rather, there are those who claim that many educational systems hinder creativity. Indeed, institutional pressures often prevent teachers from engaging in creative teaching practices. Furthermore, there is a lack of guidelines for helping teachers to adopt pedagogical strategies that foster creativity. Hence, the need has emerged for teachers to have models and tools for including creativity in their daily practices. In this context, the present study seeks to provide new models for promoting teachers’ and learners’ creativity. The thesis investigates the potential of Game-Based Learning (GBL) for promoting creative teaching practices.

Indeed, digital games, when applied to educational contexts, can promote creative pedagogies: they have proved to enhance students’ intrinsic motivation towards learning; they are interactive systems which promote learning by doing processes; they also provide meaningful learning experiences by simulating highly interactive scenarios where students face real-world problems; finally, they provide risk-free environments which enable learners to explore and experiment.

Literature identifies some barriers to the implementation of digital games in formal educational settings, such as the difficulty to reach a balance between fun and learning, as well as to align games with curriculum requirements. To tackle these obstacles, my research proposes an approach in which teachers create their own learning games, specially designed to reach their specific teaching outcomes.

My study answers the following question: how can teachers’ creativity be enhanced by an approach where they design and apply their own learning games? It attempts to contribute to a greater comprehension of the phenomenon of creativity as applied in educational contexts, through a game design approach. It also aims to contribute to bridging the current literature gap regarding the possibilities of educational game design by teachers. Finally, it intends to provide educational practitioners with concrete examples of creative practices, based on innovative approaches in which teachers design their own educational resources.

In the context of a multiple case study, nine Spanish primary and secondary school teachers designed their own learning games, especially tailored to their educational contexts, and applied them with their students. Within four cases, my research investigated teachers’ creativity according to three different dimensions: (a) process (the different stages of educational game design); (b) product (the learning games created); and (c) teaching (the practices at stake during the application of the games).

My study proposes and validates the CEGAD model (Creative Educational GAme Design), which represents the different stages of educational game design by teachers, as well as the influences of the personal and environmental components, from the perspective of creativity. Furthermore, results show that many characteristics of creative pedagogies are supported by the game design approach. Finally, the research highlights the opportunities, facilitators and challenges to the approach, proposing new research directions in the field.

Los cambios sociales y económicos hacen que sea difícil predecir lo que el futuro puede deparar. La creatividad se considera una posible respuesta a estas transformaciones. Las capacidades creativas permiten a los estudiantes enfrentarse a la compleja naturaleza de la vida. La creatividad se ha convertido, así, en un concepto importante en la educación. Sin embargo, la creatividad no siempre se promueve en la escuela. Las presiones institucionales impiden que los profesores empleen prácticas de enseñanza creativa. Por lo tanto, surge la necesidad, para el profesorado, de tener modelos y herramientas para la integración de la creatividad en el aula. En este contexto, la presente investigación tiene como objetivo proporcionar nuevos modelos para el desarrollo de la creatividad del profesorado, y por ende, la del alumnado.

La tesis investiga el potencial de las metodologías de aprendizaje basado en juegos para la promoción de prácticas de enseñanza creativa. En efecto, pueden promover pedagogías creativas, aumentando la motivación de los estudiantes hacia el aprendizaje y promoviendo procesos de aprendizaje activo.

La literatura científica identifica algunas barreras para la implementación de videojuegos en contextos educativos formales, tal como la dificultad para llegar a un equilibrio entre la diversión y el aprendizaje, así como adecuar los juegos a los requisitos curriculares. Para superar estos obstáculos, esta investigación propone un enfoque en el que los profesores crean sus propios videojuegos educativos, especialmente diseñados para sus contextos de enseñanza.

En un estudio de casos múltiples, nueve profesores y profesoras de educación primaria y secundaria diseñaron y realizaron sus propios videojuegos educativos y los aplicaron con sus alumnos. La tesis investiga la creatividad de los docentes en función de tres dimensiones distintas: (a) proceso (las diferentes etapas de diseño de videojuegos educativos), (b) producto (los videojuegos educativos creados), y (c) enseñanza (las prácticas de enseñanza durante la aplicación de los videojuegos en el aula).

La tesis propone y valida el modelo CEGAD (Creative Eduducational GAme Design - diseño creativo de juegos educativos), que representa las diferentes etapas del diseño de videojuegos educativos por el profesorado. Además, los resultados ponen de manifiesto que el enfoque de diseño de videojuegos educativos potencia pedagogías creativas. Finalmente, la tesis destaca las oportunidades, facilitadores y retos propios de este enfoque.