Collaborative Constructions: Designing High School History Curriculum with the Lost & Found Game Series

Collaborative Constructions: Designing High School History Curriculum with the Lost & Found Game Series

Collaborative Constructions: Designing High School History Curriculum with the Lost & Found Game Series

By Owen Gottlieb and Shawn Clybor

Abstract

"This chapter addresses design research and iterative curriculum design for the Lost & Found games series. The Lost & Found card-to-mobile series is set in Fustat (Old Cairo) in the twelfth century and focuses on religious laws of the period. The first two games focus on Moses Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, a key Jewish law code. A new expansion module which was in development at the time of the fieldwork described in this article that introduces Islamic laws of the period, and a mobile prototype of the initial strategy game has been developed with support National Endowment for the Humanities. The series pays close attention to period details and provides numerous entry points for curriculum. Featured at the 2019 Smithsonian American Museum of Art (SAAM) Arcade, winner of the best non-digital game at International Meaningful Play, and a Bronze medal winner at the International Serious Play competition, these games combine engaging table-top play across game genres with opportunities to learn about medieval religious history. The first game in the series is a strategy game which combines competitive and collaborative play as players make tradeoff decisions to balance the needs of their family with needs of the wider community. The second game in the series is a party game which focuses on legal reasoning. This chapter addresses approaching learning environments, from design with experts and playtests with learners to participant observation and narrative reports at a high school where the game is being used to teach history. Crucial to learning games is the way in which they relate to, are interwoven with, and are ultimately embedded in curriculum, especially learning outcomes and objectives. This chapter will examine strategies and processes that explore that interweaving."

Reference

Gottlieb, O., & Clybor, S. (2022). Collaborative Constructions: Designing High School History Curriculum with the Lost & Found Game Series.

https://scholarworks.rit.edu/article/2063/

Keywords

design research, iterative curriculum design, lost & found games series, moses maimonides' mishneh torah, islamic laws in the twelfth century, learning game design