Catherine Beavis is Professor of Education in the Faculty of Education and the Arts at Deakin University, Australia, and program leader for the Curriculum, Assessment, Pedagogy and Digital Learning program in REDI - Research for Educational Impact: Deakin University's Strategic Research Centre for research in Education.

Michael Dezuanni is Associate Professor in the Creative Industries Faculty at Queensland University of Technology, Australia.

Joanne O'Mara is Associate Professor of Education in the Faculty of Arts and Education at Deakin University, Australia.

Table of Contents

Preface to the book

Theme 1 preface: Student approaches to games-based learning

1. Serious Play: Literacy, learning, and digital games

Catherine Beavis

2. "A game isn't a game without interaction": Students' thoughts about the use of digital games in school

Catherine Beavis, Roberta Thompson, and Sandy Muspratt

3. Impassioned learning and Minecraft

Michael Dezuanni and Joanne O'Mara

Theme 2 preface: Changing game-play for the classroom context

4. Negotiating pedagogical transformation and identity performance through gameplay in Statecraft X

Roberta Thompson, Catherine Beavis, and Jason Zagami

5. Curating the curriculum with digital games

Michael Dezuanni and Jason Zagami

Theme 3 preface: Teachers' work and games-based pedagogies

6. The non-gamer teacher, the quiz & pop teacher, and the Kinect teacher

Sarah Prestridge

7. Narratives come to life through coding: Digital game-making as Language and Literacy curriculum

Joanne O'Mara

Theme 4 preface: Digital literacies in the wild-multimodality, materiality and embodiment

8. Mining the Cli-Fi world: Renegotiating the curriculum using Minecraft

Joanne O'Mara and Kynan Robinson

9. Games as text and games as action: English, literacy and digital games

Catherine Beavis, Sarah Prestridge, and Joanne O'Mara

10. Material and discursive learning with Minecraft and Lego

Michael Dezuanni

Theme 5 preface: Assessment, digital games and teachers as creative professionals

11. Serious outcomes from Serious Play: Teachers' beliefs about assessment of games based learning in schools

Leonie Rowan and Catherine Beavis

12. Playing, making and analysing games: Cases of assessment and Serious Play

Leonie Rowan

13. Quests, achievements and experience points: Opportunities to level up through school-based Serious Play

Leonie Rowan and Sarah Prestridge

Post Script

Serious Play is a comprehensive account of the possibilities and challenges of teaching and learning with digital games in primary and secondary schools. Based on an original research project, the book explores digital games' capacity to engage and challenge, present complex representations and experiences, foster collaborative and deep learning and enable curricula that connect with young people today. These exciting approaches illuminate the role of context in gameplay as well as the links between digital culture, gameplay and identity in learners' lives, and are applicable to research and practice at the leading edge of curriculum and literacy development.