Games and learning expert Constance Steinkuehler will discuss the promises and tensions around game-based learning amid the larger context of educational change. While the use of games in learning has become more accepted in some places than it was a decade ago, it remains controversial in many places because of larger debates around screen time and the relative importance and place of out-of-school learning. All the while, young people are using games to engage in compelling intellectual, interest-driven forms of learning. What is the intellectual life of games online? Young people can pick up valuable skills useful in the classroom, but will game-based learning become more broadly accepted in formal education?How do games play a role in interest-driven learning? How will these issues get resolved?
About Constance:Constance Steinkuehler is an Associate Professor in Digital Media at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and co-directs the Games+Learning+Society (GLS) center at the Wisconsin Institute of Discovery and chairs their annual GLS Conference. Her research is on cognition and learning in commercial entertainment games and games designed for impact.
Constance’s current research interests include neuroscience and games (particularly in the areas of attention and emotional and social well-being), learning analytics (informal scientific reasoning, problem-solving, and the role of failure), and mixed methods (game community discourse and literacy).
Constance Steinkuehler, University of Wisconsin–Madison
