This book challenges common understandings of boredom and disengagement in classrooms, taking a relational approach to boredom which looks beyond the usual distinctions between in-school and out-of-school practices. The book explores how a sociomaterial perspective can provide an alternative analysis of boredom as performative, and as a phenomenon…

Research has shown that e-learning games do not have the same level of appeal to girls, as they do to boys; particularly in the crucial 11-14 age group. In the United Kingdom, this is typically when they start to make subject choices that impact their future studies and careers. Given the shortage of females who choose computer science as a…

This project report describes a playful approach to teaching copyright through a newly developed game entitled Copyright Dough. As copyright literacy has become increasingly important in scholarly communication, this paper explores how a more engaging teaching method is essential for getting researchers, students, academics, and library staff to…

The range of abstract concepts encountered when learning chemistry and the inability of students to make connections between the macroscopic, sub-microscopic, and symbolic representations, used in chemistry teaching, are believed to be the main reasons for students' difficulty when learning chemistry. Prediction and determination of molecular…

An educational escape activity was developed, embedding elements of both augmented and immersive virtual reality technologies, in an active learning environment. The mental visualization of abstract concepts can be difficult for students, inhibiting their ability to reason cogently regarding important topics of stereochemistry. Consequently, an…

Gamification has a strong track record of improving student engagement and learning in the chemical sciences. Meta-analyses of different approaches to gamification have highlighted that providing a game fiction, encouraging students to work in teams, and breaking games into smaller "quests" are particularly effective. Here, we aimed to…

In an increasingly neoliberal Higher Education sector, there is increased pressure on institutions to enhance learner engagement and student satisfaction. Many academics believe that students expect their university learning experiences to be enjoyable, and discourses of game-based learning reflect this, with a dominant narrative highlighting the…

In 2019 a pilot project called 'Homeless Monopoly' evolved in Coventry to investigate how arts methodologies, dramatic scenarios and gamification could be used to raise awareness in young people regarding homelessness. This article investigates the origins and collaborative development of this project, but specifically focuses on how piloting the…

Escape games are an increasingly popular leisure activity involving a group of players completing tasks to achieve a pre-defined goal, which is usually escaping from a room. In this chapter, I briefly outline the educational potential of escape game activities in language classes within the frameworks of gamification, pervasive learning, and…

We describe the production of an educational game ("Catastrophic") for supporting biology learning in higher education (HE) that was developed through a partnership between students and academic staff. We consider the ways in which the development project intersects with the use of game-based learning in HE and with Students as Partners…

Research studies investigating the occupational socialization of primary teachers delivering physical education has been conspicuous by its absence (O'Leary, N. 2019. "Teacher socialization in physical education: new perspectives." "Sport, Education and Society" 24 (6): 668-671). Using Lawson's, H. (1986. "Occupational…

Children in Georgian and Victorian times were expected to be familiar with the geography of England and Wales. This study analyses some of the resources then available which taught children this information. John Aikin's "England Delineated" is evaluated as a geographical text and then compared with less formal games and puzzles, then on…

The recent shift in compulsory education from ICT-focused computing curricula to informatics, digital literacy and computer science, has resulted in children being taught computing using block-based programming tools such as Scratch, with teaching that is often limited by school resources and teacher expertise. Even without these limitations,…

The purpose of this study was to explore how a physical education (PE) teacher employed the direct instruction model (DIM) teaching games in a United Kingdom secondary school. The research sought to identify how the teacher utilised the DIM and those factors that influenced his use of the model. Occupational socialization was used to identify the…

Previous studies in both typically and atypically developing children have shown that approximate number system (ANS) abilities predict formal mathematical knowledge later on in life. The current study investigated whether playing specially designed training games that targets the ANS system using nonsymbolic stimuli only would improve preschool…