Deliberate Play for Learning Design
Deliberate Play for Learning Design
Deliberate Play for Learning Design
By Zsolt Olah
August 11, 2021
Summary
The process of deconstructing a dish to create your own interpretation is similar to "Deliberate play" for learning designers who want to apply game design to their work.
Deliberate Play Deliberate play is playing games to analyze and classify the ingredients, observe dynamics in gameplay over time, and capture the essence of the experience.
If you're a learning designer who wants to use game elements in learning design, you must play games first.
Without playing games, your design will most likely use the same "Ingredients" and "Flavor profile" for every solution.
You need to practice using deliberate play to classify and describe elements and their dynamics in the game.
Does a Game Taxonomy Exist? If so, Is There One Mapped for Learning Effectiveness? The goal of learning design is effective learning rather than pure entertainment.
During my session at the ATD 2021 International Conference & EXPO, we're going to dive deeper into deliberate play using a proposed game taxonomy sheet for learning.
The deliberate play worksheet I've put together for learning designers is based on an empirical study, Toward a Taxonomy Linking Game Attributes to Learning: An Empirical Study, which explains why it is important to have a taxonomy.
In a full deliberate play, you would go through all nine, but I hope this example demonstrates how a well-defined taxonomy can help to understand, analyze, and deconstruct games to create more engaging and effective learning.
If you can't make it to my session at the ATD 2021 International Conference & Exposition, you'll find more guidance on games and gamification for learning professionals in the TD at Work article "Game Thinking: From Content to Actions."
Reference
Olah, Z. (2021, August 11). Deliberate play for learning design. Main. https://www.td.org/atd-blog/deliberate-play-for-learning-design.