Terrell Page leads attendees in a collaborative worldbuilding workshop as part of his presentation.

Author: Page Terrell | Major: English Education | Semester: Fall 2023

Serious Play is an annual academic conference in Toronto, Canada, about using games in K-12 education, university education, job training, and military training. It is one of the few major international conferences where the fusion of video games, simulations, and tabletop games with education is the primary topic, not a smaller subtopic within a larger education-only conference. Therefore, it was the nearest place to go to learn more about game-based education from experts across the world.

I did some networking, but I brought home more new ideas than business cards. I learned at Serious Play that tabletop role-playing games (RPGs) can aid socioemotional learning. Monique Thakkar, a licensed therapist, told us about how she uses Therapeutically Applied Role-Playing Games (TARPGs) as play therapy for neurodivergent children and teens. The imaginative role-playing in the games lets students express their feelings and explore different approaches to situations in a safer, more inviting space than real life. Since TARPGs are usually turn-based and team-oriented, they also helped Thakkar teach some of her students not to interrupt each other. While Dungeons & Dragons is the most famous RPG, Thakkar gave us substantial lists of RPGs of varying difficulties and aesthetics. Coyote and Crow, for example, is a sci-fi and fantasy RPG set in the future of a universe where colonization never happened in the Americas, and it’s made by Native American game developers. Thakkar also mentioned that teachers who aren’t as proficient in RPGs can ask their local comics shop for someone who can teach them how to manage RPGs or who can direct a few games in the classroom.

Andrew Davies, a typography professor, told us about the process of turning extra practice assignments into Side Quests. Unlike extra credit, these assignments are for XP (experience points), not grades. This isn’t just a superficial name change, though. XP can only be exchanged for non-grade rewards like extra excused absences or chances to revise and resubmit a previous project. Side Quests are not simple definition questions that students could look up on the Internet. Some involved drawing a drop cap to show understanding of the concept, searching for various classifications and fonts across campus, or meeting a BIPOC typeface designer.

I was most excited to hear about adapting digital games to humanities classrooms, and Serious Play did not disappoint. Experts presented on everything from teaching about urban planning via a cozy point-and-click game to teaching local history by letting students across the district recreate the entire city in Minecraft. And when Mike Washburn (Director of Learning Experiences at Logics Academy) stressed the importance of teachers actually playing the game they want to introduce before throwing it at the students, I nearly cried of pure joy.

I believe that teachers must intuitively understand game design, their classroom, and their own curriculum to properly implement game-based learning. Whenever a teacher uses a videogame in their classroom, they must strike a balance between the students who are very proficient at videogames, the students who have never played a videogame in their lives, and everyone else in between. If the game the teacher introduces is too hard, then some students will stop playing after a very short time. If the game is too easy, then the gamer students will feel betrayed. Their favorite hobby—playing videogames—has now been made mind-numbingly boring. Not only that, but if the game doesn’t teach students anything (for a serious game) or if the teacher fails to integrate the game’s larger themes and subjects into the unit (for a commercial game), then no one will understand the purpose of the game. I learned at this conference that I am not alone in seeing this. Many presenters cited this balancing conundrum as a disclaimer when they introduced their recommended games. Though some presentations were from K-12 instructors, many were from university professors, therapists, and other professionals. I learned from all of them, and I will bring what I learned into my future classroom. I hope to even bring some of it into my upcoming student teaching internship next semester!

When I finally presented my research, I told the attendees about my work for 20 minutes. For the rest of the hour, I guided them through mini versions of my class’s collaborative worldbuilding exercises, checking each group’s progress and giving assistance when needed. Attendees arranged themselves in groups of 4-5 by genre, pondered genre-specific questions, brainstormed maps, and assigned controls to a controller, just like my students did in my classroom unit. I presented my work this way so that attendees could understand by doing it, rather than just hearing me lecture them about it. I allotted 10 minutes at the end for questions and feedback, and I received many positive responses. Attendees said they were happy to talk to each other and brainstorm their worlds, and their feedback added to further research. Someone even gave me a book on my subject that I had never heard of before: Collaborative Worldbuilding for Video Games by Kaitlin Tremblay. I was honored that Monique Thakkar (the TARPG therapist) loved my presentation, too! I felt validated by my new peers. My presentation was also featured on Tabletop News, a tabletop gaming news network, the very next week (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrS1FjN7YE4, at the 4:40 mark).

After each day of the conference, I was so exhausted. I loved Toronto’s food, and it helped carry me through the astonishment of being in another country. However, I’d advise other Honors students to bring a self-care kit to help them calm down and sleep every night. (Aptly enough, mine was just my Nintendo Switch and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.)

Presenting at this conference gave me some much-needed confidence for when I present at the UARK COEHP Honors Symposium in Spring 2024. I presented in a track reserved for graduate students inside of a larger conference full of mid-career experts…as an undergraduate student! Regarding this research, I feel prepared to handle any challenge that comes my way!