University orientation plays a crucial role in fostering student engagement, social integration, and retention. This practice report describes the development and refinement of a game-based orientation activity: a digital scavenger hunt designed to enhance engagement, social connectedness, and campus familiarisation. The activity was guided by the…

Learning activities are often perceived as a tedious work tasks. To address this perception, concepts such as Gamification and Game-Based Learning have been introduced to make learning more enjoyable. Deep focus states, such as Immersion and Flow, describe situations where learners are highly focused and disregard the work aspect of the activity.…

This research examines the effect of critical reflection activities in an educational environment that uses active and blended learning experiences for students to develop confidence, motivation, and engagement with their learning. A mixed-methods research approach was adopted on a sample of 137 Communications and Media students, who were involved…

Understanding homeostasis is foundational to biology; yet students often hold persistent misconceptions about its mechanisms and complexity. To address these challenges, we developed a collaborative, card-based board game in which players act as components of the endocrine and physiological systems to help a character named Bill enact homeostasis…

Educational game designers face persistent challenges in integrating learning activities seamlessly into gameplay. Existing content integration strategies, such as intrinsic and extrinsic integration, often struggle to balance motivation, engagement, and learning outcomes effectively. This paper addresses these long-standing challenges by…

The authors describe Hexacago Health Academy (HHA) 2.0, a five-year summer intervention designed to increase interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) among mostly Black high school students in Chicago. The program features public health fundamentals and game design using principles of systems thinking, social-cognitive…

The authors argue that playable fictions and analog game design can be an effective way to engage students in discussions about climate change and related scientific areas of exploration. They offer the example of a middle school climate science education unit grounded in the design, analysis, and play of board games and card games based on a…

Many elementary school students do not enjoy learning English due to ineffective instructional approaches that limit independent learning. While digital technology offers potential solutions, its educational use faces challenges such as misinformation and students' low digital resilience. This study investigates the current levels of digital…

Taiwanese students learn Chinese from 3 years old using Bopomofo (Zhuyin Fuhao), but they still struggle with spelling and reading, even in middle school. Thus, we guided students still struggling to read Chinese text to use their logical skills and creativity to incorporate the Bopomofo phonetic alphabet into the Rummikub strategy board game.…