Design for Learning Through a Complexity Perspective:  A Board Game Redesign Approach to Enabling Learning Possibilities

Bastani, Reyhaneh

Design for Learning Through a Complexity Perspective: A Board Game Redesign Approach to Enabling Learning Possibilities

dc.contributor.advisor	Kim, Beaumie
dc.contributor.author	Bastani, Reyhaneh
dc.contributor.committeemember	Davis, Andrew Brent
dc.contributor.committeemember	Sengupta, Pratim
dc.date	2022-06
dc.date.accessioned	2022-04-19T16:35:04Z
dc.date.available	2022-04-19T16:35:04Z
dc.date.issued	2022-03
dc.description.abstract	This doctoral study followed a conception of learning as a complex phenomenon and aimed to examine possible ways of supporting it. Drawing on insights from complexity research, particularly the notion of enabling constraints (Davis & Simmt, 2003), I explored the settings for supporting learners’ agency in pursuing their ideas and interests, while stimulating new possibilities of collective understanding and action. A design-based research was used to evaluate the potential of board game redesign in providing the settings for complexity-informed design conditions. The following questions guided this research: How would board game redesign provide the settings for enabling constraints? How would learners’ co-design practices evolve through the game redesign process? and How would learners’ decisions, ideas and interests frame their designs and open the space for using math and science in creating game systems? Using the framework of enabling constraints, the first phase analyzed the commonalities and variations in students’ collaborative practices in redesigning the board game Inversé for mathematics learning, in an elementary classroom. This analysis highlighted the importance of structured constraints at the starting point in supporting a common language. It also indicated the interconnection of the constraining and enabling aspects of the developed commonalities throughout the process. Learners’ emerging ideas and reaching higher conceptual possibilities were enabled as they developed shared goals and understandings through the project structure and cycles of unfolding co-design. The learning design in the second phase explicitly used complexity-informed conditions. It involved engaging middle school students with math and science through redesigning the cooperative board game Pandemic. Drawing on the notions of divergence and convergence of ideas and self-imposed constraints from design and creativity research (Biskjaer & Halskov, 2014; Stokes, 2009), the analytic frame in this phase focused on the processes of the evolution of learners’ practices and understanding. The findings elaborated on how the board game redesign approach not only set some structures but also enabled students to negotiate their interests and choices and collectively make decisions. Learners’ interests and decisions acted as self-imposed constraints that framed their work and could simultaneously expand their design space and engagement with math and science topics.	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Bastani, R. (2022). Design for learning through a complexity perspective: a board game redesign approach to enabling learning possibilities (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.	en_US
dc.identifier.doi	http://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/39689
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/1880/114560
dc.language.iso	eng	en_US
dc.publisher.faculty	Werklund School of Education	en_US
dc.publisher.institution	University of Calgary	en
dc.rights	University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.	en_US
dc.subject	Complexity research	en_US
dc.subject	Complexity research in education	en_US
dc.subject	learning sciences	en_US
dc.subject	board game	en_US
dc.subject	board game design	en_US
dc.subject	board game redesign	en_US
dc.subject	design-based learning	en_US
dc.subject	mathematics learning	en_US
dc.subject	science learning	en_US
dc.subject	design-based research	en_US
dc.subject	mathematics education	en_US
dc.subject	complex systems	en_US
dc.subject	enabling constraints	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Education	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Education--Curriculum and Instruction	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Education--Technology	en_US
dc.title	Design for Learning Through a Complexity Perspective: A Board Game Redesign Approach to Enabling Learning Possibilities	en_US
dc.type	doctoral thesis	en_US
thesis.degree.discipline	Education Graduate Program – Educational Research	en_US
thesis.degree.grantor	University of Calgary	en_US
thesis.degree.name	Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)	en_US
ucalgary.item.requestcopy	true	en_US