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Dear Teacher Educator,
When was the last time you truly played?
Not the routine icebreakers, the perfunctory energisers, or the neatly packaged “activities” we often slot into workshops. But real play—the kind that sparks curiosity, removes hierarchy, invites exploration, and reminds us that learning can be joyful, messy, and deeply human.
As teacher educators, we often focus on content, frameworks, tools, and competencies. Yet one of the most powerful ways to help teachers learn is by creating the conditions in which learning itself feels alive.
In this edition, we explore:
What teacher learning has to do with game design and play
A glimpse into the workshop we held last month on 'Learning in Play' discussing how play can be included in the learning experiences we create for teachers
Play is a natural language of learning, enabling immersive and transformational experiences—often without our conscious awareness. It holds equally powerful potential in adult learning environments.
It allows us to transcend roles and hierarchy, inviting us to experience—not just observe—another perspective. It is skill, decision-making, and imagination in action, stretching the boundaries of our thinking while safely simulating complex scenarios.
Play isn’t an add-on; it’s a mindset. It’s a form of andragogy, and a powerful way for teachers to reconnect with the joy of learning.
At the end of last month, the Perspectives-in-Practice team hosted : ‘Learning in Play’, an online session designed by Ajitson Justus & Kavin P. The session discussed how game design principles could be employed in creating engaging Teacher Learning Experiences. We took a rather ambitious route to make it an immersive experience. Rather than simply share the framework for game design that they have curated & use, our facilitators chose to build a game for the workshop!
Weeks before the space, we decided on a common challenge that Teacher Educators faced (teacher responsiveness to feedback) , and used their game design framework to develop an engaging experience that would shift teacher mindsets and practices relating to giving & taking feedback.
In the first half of the workshop, we as participants got to do the exciting bit of playing the game they had built. Essentially, we had fun beta-testing it.
In the second half, Ajitson took us through the BTS of the 7-step Framework (below) that he uses to build games. And we came up with challenges and ideas of our own for games we could build. Here's Ajitson's playful, introspective reflection (which we loved!) of the space.
A meta-takeaway that we as curators had, is that the principles and ways-of-thinking that underpin creating an engaging game, are very similar to those needed to design any engaging learning experience: we need to understand our audience, the content and context of the learning material, identify key elements that drive engagement, and iterate till it is a consistently engaging experience.
As initial steps to bringing in game-design principles into learning experiences for teachers, we suggest:
You as a facilitator can play a varied set of games, to get comfortable with the medium, as well as understand how it drives learning.
Further, observe how the elements and mechanics of each game impact how engaged you are, how it gets you to think, and learn.
Search for and experiment with some games when facilitating for small groups of teachers!
You have come to the end of this edition!
Thank you for engaging!
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