Committee of N : playful design in teacher education

Committee of N is a collaborative card game where players deepen their learning about educational policy and the history of education in the U.S. by creating new kinds of schools based on design constraints implemented through random card draws. In the core game play, players are randomly assigned educational values (e.g. belief in multiple intelligences or achievement on high-stakes tests) from a deck along with a specific school element (bell schedule, graduation requirements, etc.), and they then creatively design the element to reflect their assigned values. By using cards as context for discussion, research, and design, undergraduate education students become animated about the possibilities of designing and imagining the school they would most like to teach in, grounded in theory and practice. By examining student work created in the normal course of class, by interviewing students and teaching staff, and by examining student artifacts, I make the case that students are learning and reflecting as educational professionals. I argue that both game affordances and construction kit affordances help students create a constructive lens, marking a professional capacity to decompose existing learning environments as well as to modify and design their own.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctoral

Department dc:contributor.department

Program in Media Arts and Sciences (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Haas, Jason(Jason Michael)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Eric Klopfer.

• Program in Media Arts and Sciences

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/124198

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/124198