Games as tools for dialogic teaching and learning

GAMES AS TOOLS FOR DIALOGIC TEACHING AND LEARNING HANS CHRISTIAN ARNSETH THORKILD HANGHØJ KENNETH SILSETH Pre-print draft Arnseth, H. C., Hanghøj, T. & Silseth, K. (2018): Games as Tools for Dialogic Teaching and Learning. In H. C. Arnseth, T. Hanghøj, T.D. Henriksen, M. Misfeldt, R. Ramberg & S. Selander (Eds.) Games and Education: Designs in and for Learning. Leiden: Brill. INTRODUCTION During the last couple of decades, research on digital games in education has demonstrated how games can be used as effective tools for learning in and across different domains (Gredler, 1996; Gros, 2007; Nash & Shaffer, 2011). In a recent review, Clark, Tanner-Smith, and Killingsworth (2016) argued that digital games enhance students’ learning relative to non-game conditions, but these effects vary across game mechanics characteristics and the visual and narrative characteristics of game designs. This is not surprising given the variations among games and game characteristics. However, Clark et al. also have argued that it is important to take into account both the affordances of a digital game and the pedagogical designs beyond it. In this chapter, we introduce a pedagogical model for researching and designing how games can become tools for teaching and learning. Across the educational sciences, teachers are often described as one of the main factors determining students’ learning (Hattie, 2009). Particularly important are teachers’ abilities to plan learning activities, engage students in productive interaction, and provide coherence in their learning over time (Engle, 2006; Sawyer, 2006). What concerns us here is how this translates into design-based research and teaching with digital games in the classroom. We are particularly concerned with dialogic principles of pedagogy as ways of designing for, carrying out, and analyzing practices with digital games. We use “digital games” as a generic term comprising all types of digital games across platforms. This does not mean that we are ignorant of the fact that different game designs offer different learning opportunities. On the contrary, when using the model to inform learning design and analysis, researchers and teachers need to pay careful attention to the level of fit between the game design and other features of the learning situation. We know surprisingly little about how we can design learning environments in which games become tools for expansive learning conversations. Apart from earlier work conducted by the authors of this paper (Hanghøj, 2008; Silseth, 2012; Silseth & Arnseth, 2011), relatively few empirical studies exist that consider dialogic aspects of teaching and learning with games. In summary, there is a lack of knowledge of how teachers and students can utilize games and features of games as relevant tools for talk and learning. We do not see games as fixed learning machines or as constituents of magic circles (Huizinga, 1950), but rather as flexible artifacts that may take on many different meanings when taught and played across different classrooms. In this way, we are interested in the relationship between the game as an artifact and the dialogic pedagogy used within particular game-based learning environments. Viewing digital games as flexible tools emphasizes the dialogical assumption that learning takes place by allowing knowledge to be continually “constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed” (Wegerif, 2006a, p. 60). In this chapter, we draw together some of the recent findings from our research; we explicate some of the core dialogic concepts and relate them to digital games; and we try to formulate a set of principles or guidelines for a dialogic pedagogy with digital games, what we term “the GTDT model” (Games as Tools for Dialogic Teaching). Introducing games can also cause disruptions in established pedagogies. The meanings and functions of games cut across formal and informal contexts, but we argue that this can also be a source of discussion and reflection. Disruption constitutes an opportunity to engage in dialogue. Tensions can be about how players experience and make sense of the game and how their experiences connect to curricular topics. They can exist between game narratives and real-world scenarios, for instance, or between how the Cold War is depicted in a game and how it is described in textbooks. Finally, they can exist between game mechanics and real world events, for example, between how city planning is simulated in a game and how it happens in real life. Such tensions can offer new forms of comparison and dialogue, which can be productive in terms of expanding learners’ preconceived assumptions, values, and ideas (Thomas & Brown, 2007). The GTDT model is grounded in a dialogic pedagogy. Dialogic theories originated in the seminal works of Bakhtin and Vygotsky (Wertsch, 1991). These ideas help us to tease out what we believe constitutes important principles for design-based research and a dialogic pedagogy for game- and play-oriented learning. These theories underscore how meaning, thinking, and being are situated in concrete, practical circumstances. Meaning is constituted by context and constitutive of context, and human learning and development is dependent on and mediated by semiotic and material tools. Furthermore, human sense-making is the result of negotiations among different voices and positions, and meaning is the result of negotiations among different participants. Furthermore, meaning and sense are never final. What things mean or how they function can always be reinterpreted and made problematic. From this perspective, games can be used to open up dialogic spaces that offer multiple voices and positions. Following Thomas and Brown (2007), we argue that games can help create complex dialogic spaces in the classroom where different voices can enter into dialogue. Within the spaces of virtual worlds, we can begin to see a new way of learning emerge, focused on the ideas of agency and disposition, facilitated by modes of transfer that are no longer about fidelity between worlds, but are about the power of imagination to explore the differences and similarities between them and to use experience to translate those differences and similarities from the virtual to the physical world. (Thomas & Brown, 2007, p. 169) From this perspective, digital games are tools with flexible meanings, purposes, and functions, which can make them into tailorable and useful tools for teaching and learning. This does not mean that we believe it is easy to implement digital games into educational practices. A range of practical and pedagogical issues makes it challenging to use digital games for learning. Some of these issues are related to the relevance of particular games to learning goals, the amount of time it takes to play games, access to relevant hardware and software in schools, and teachers’ digital competence (Van Eck, 2009). We also want to underline that we cannot take for granted that all students are necessarily interested in games, and different pupils might also have different preferences in terms of the games they like to play outside school. Finally, using games in a school context also changes the meaning and purpose of games and game playing, which could impact students’ motivation and interest. We believe that to face these challenges, a sound pedagogical framework increases the likelihood of productive uses of digital games in classrooms. The GTDT model consists of principles and recommendations for designing, analyzing, and using different types of games to facilitate dialogic learning. One of the aims is to facilitate productive interaction in and around games. To support teacher’s pedagogical strategies, it is also important to analyze how particular game mechanics, narrative structures, and representational forms are able or unable to support learning through dialogue. For instance, there are important differences between single-player games and multi-player games, with the latter often facilitating more in-game dialogue among players. Still, we argue that in principle all games can become part of dialogic practices, which may foster dialogic spaces that allow participants to identify with new perspectives within a multi-voiced classroom. This is dependent both on specific game features and on how the game is “talked into being” as part of classroom practices. For instance, an empirical study of a single-player learning game intended to train adults’ second language skills showed how the game was used spontaneously to facilitate various types of dialogic learning among students. It helped create a playful frame for learning and generated specific “language events” during lessons, which the teacher could use as resources in the later instructional work (Hautopp & Hanghøj, 2014). The study shows how games can act as contingent and somewhat unpredictable discussion tools. According to Atkins (2006), games are “temporal events that exist only in their dialogic relationship with a player, and a video game without a player is just so much dead code” (p. 135). The meaning of games is therefore not static and given a priori (Arnseth, 2006). Like any other text, game texts have meaning potentials that can be realized in many different ways (Linell, 2009). This also means that it is problematic to assume that particular game designs automatically determine or support specific types of dialogue. Instead, we argue that a model of game-based dialogic pedagogy should identify and describe productive patterns of dialogue in and around games, focus on the dynamics between a game design and its use in the classroom, and specify how teachers can create productive learning trajectories for students. To understand how this might happen, it is necessary to discuss and introduce important dialogic concepts in some detail. Throughout the chapter, we address how digital games can become talked into being in the classroom. We also discuss how digital games can co-constitute dialogic spaces that offer ways of experiencing and reflecting, enabling players to take the perspective of the other. We argue that the learning opportunities offered by digital games are very much dependent on how they are enacted and articulated. Digital games offer the opportunity for more instrumental teaching and learning where the emphasis is placed on mastering game rules, leveling up, gaining experience points, and winning. However, they also offer opportunities for bringing other voices and positions into the classroom. We argue that the latter is more fruitful in terms of creating powerful dialogic spaces for learning. The structure of our chapter is as follows: First, we introduce important concepts from dialogic theory. After that, we critically review the relevant literature with a particular focus on the role of the teacher in classroom practices with games. Then, we introduce and describe in detail our dialogic model for designing and analyzing teaching and learning with digital games. Finally, we draw together the main threads of our argument and display how games can help create dialogic spaces and disrupt traditional pedagogies. UTTERANCE AND VOICE: A DIALOGICAL APPROACH “Dialogism” is an epistemological approach to the understanding of language, cognition, and meaning-making as something cultural and historical. From this perspective, meaning is always situated in social and cultural life, and every act is seen as a response or an answer to something in this context (Linell, 1998). Dialogism contrasts with what is often coined “monologism,” which is a collective term for approaches informed by the idea that meaning resides in language as a formal system of signs (Marková, 1990). A dialogical approach departs from this idea and sees meanings being created in interactions among real people in particular settings (Valsiner & van der Veer, 2000). In a dialogical approach, interaction and context work as guiding principles when studying language, cognition, and meaning-making (Linell, 1998, 2009). The notion of “dialogicality” is perhaps the most basic concept for Bakhtin (1981, 1986; Wertsch, 1991). Put simply, it refers to how an utterance both represents a certain position or the voice of a speaker and an orientation towards a recipient or an addressee. Thus, every utterance has a dual nature. This is also the case for sense-making and how we use language to make sense of one another and the world. In this sense, dialogicality is also an epistemic concept. In a dialogic approach, important concepts are utterance and voice. These ideas enable us to provide a more nuanced understanding of how signs and tools mediate human activity systems. The notion of “utterance” has been coined precisely to underscore the fact that language is not an abstract system. On the contrary, our idea of language as a system is abstracted from the concrete usage of language in situ, and not the opposite, the derivation of meaning from an abstract system of signs. According to Linell (1998), the conceptualization of language as primarily an abstract system represents a bias towards the written word. In contrast, the notion of utterance retains and points out this view of language, namely that meaning is always situated in concrete historical, social, and communicative circumstances. For Bakhtin (1981), the utterance is the unit of analysis when studying human sense-making. It is also the site where the systematicity of language and concrete, situated usage come together. According to Bakhtin (1981), “voice” refers to the speaking personality or consciousness; it is the person situated in a particular time and space that speaks and thinks. An utterance is produced by a voice; a voice is where the utterance is coming from and how it is responsive towards other voices. A voice is not simply something that persons have; instead, it orients to the other—to a recipient or a context. Bakhtin has also stressed the notion of “multivoicedness.” In this sense, meaning is always heterogeneous. This does not mean that all voices are equally important or visible in dialogue. A dialogic approach also entails a critical approach, that is, it emphasizes the importance of scrutinizing why some voices and not others are invoked in particular circumstances. A take on learning within a dialogic approach has been formulated by Wegerif (2006b, 2007). He has emphasized the importance of creating “dialogic spaces” in educational settings, where students and teachers engage in collaborative activities in which students learn to see a task or topic from others’ perspectives. According to Wegerif (2006), teaching should aim at facilitating learning situations in which multiple voices are allowed to inter-animate each other. Wegerif (2006) said that “meaning itself only arises when different perspectives are brought together in a way that allows them to ‘inter-animate’ or ‘inter-illuminate’ each other” (p. 146). Meaning is not found in one voice or one perspective, but rather in the way that these multiple voices illuminate each other. This is what we term a dialogical space in the classroom. We also draw on a socio-cultural perspective. According to this approach, meaning-making is mediated by signs and tools and situated within historically developing human practices (Wertsch, 1991). This enables us to examine in more detail how particular voices are more visible or relevant to certain contexts, as well as how students can become and need to appropriate more hegemonic voices. Doing so will enable them over time to participate in important societal practices. Having said that, it is also an important purpose of education to gain a critical perspective on science, politics, arts, and ethics. We argue that a dialogic approach is particularly relevant to fostering a critical approach toward the organization of social and cultural life. As mentioned above, the dialogic becomes a concept or a theory of how we make meaning in general, how we understand one another, and how we make sense of our surroundings. If we were to try to reformulate some of these ideas in relation to practical pedagogy, it would seem reasonable to claim that, even though we see language use as always being dialogical, classroom interactions can be more or less dialogic in practice. Thus, certain voices can gain hegemony. Historically, the institutional voice of the school or the curriculum uttered by a teacher in a classroom gains this hegemony. It is important for us to regain this distinction between dialogism as a general theory of communication and learning and dialogic pedagogy as a more practical application of dialogic principles, in that differing ideas should be given voice in a classroom. Our practical dialogic pedagogy does not mean that we believe all voices are equally relevant, interesting, and true, but it means that a teacher should build on student ideas in an explicit manner (Silseth, 2017). It also involves being agreeable to inquiry in a more open context. Moreover, it entails bringing a more explicitly multivoiced text into play in the dialogic space of the classroom— multivoiced in that characters in a game more explicitly represent different and dynamic voices than, for instance, the voices of a textbook. According to Wegerif (2015), a dialogic pedagogy in the Internet age is dialogic in two senses: dialogue is both a goal for education and the means through which education is realized. He has also stressed the need to articulate and engage with multiple voices, arguing that dialogic argumentation is an important goal and procedure, and students need to be taught how to talk in effective and convincing ways. What is taught also needs to be made relevant to students in one way or another; the form and content need to connect to their social worlds and experiences. A dialogic pedagogy should enable students to reflect on their thinking and identity: on how they make sense of the world and on who they are as participants in a range of different practices in society and culture. A dialogic education should also enable them to reflect on the nature of important institutions in society and how they work. Finally, Wegerif (2015) has argued that new digital technologies should be used to connect to diverse cultural contexts beyond the classroom and to mediate student’s inquiries into real world problems. In the following sections, we review research on digital game-oriented learning in order to summarize important findings that might inform a dialogic game-based pedagogy. We focus on relevant research on how games are used as part of learning designs that emphasize collaboration and dialogue, as well as on research that examines the role and importance of the teacher for students’ learning and participation. This review, together with our theoretical approach, will constitute an important ground for discussing a more normative framework for the productive use of games in the classroom. DIGITAL GAME-ORIENTED LEARNING, COLLABORATION, AND DIALOGUE It is important to underscore that collaborative learning does not equal dialogue and dialogic learning. Research has demonstrated quite clearly that the implementation of collaboration does not improve learning in and of itself. A rationale for collaboration is that it is supposed to stimulate learners to explicate their knowledge (van der Meij, Albers, & Leemkuil, 2011). Theoretically, collaboration should foster the articulation of knowledge, but playing a game in a dyad does not guarantee that a player will discuss issues that are relevant to his or her task. Indicative is the analysis of the discussion protocols by Van der Meij et al. (2011), which showed that much discussion involved superficial game features, such as movements in the game. In addition, the authors proposed that scripted collaboration, in which partners are assigned a specific role or task, can improve learning (see also Hummel et al., 2011; Weinberger, Ertl, Fischer, & Mandl, 2005). We agree that scripted collaboration in relation to the educational use of computer games can be a promising combination. It would also be interesting to investigate whether the integration of scripted collaboration into a narrative provides added value. Gee (2004) has argued that, when participating in a game, you need to orient toward, adopt, and learn the frames that the designer of the game has constructed for you. However, to participate competently, you also need to learn how to use the resources in the game creatively to move forward in the game. In addition, the player can do things in the game that were unanticipated by the designer (as, for instance, seen in the practice of glitching1 or uploading Let’s Play videos on YouTube). Thus, an element of agency in many games makes them different from other cultural tools, such as books (Silseth, 2012). Players use their own experiences and knowledge when creating meaning and understanding game play, and games provide a set of values or belief systems that make it possible for players to enact different identities (DeVane & Squire, 2008; Hayes, 2007; Shah, Foster, & Barany, 2017). However, as research has shown, there can also be some challenges in implementing games as learning resources. Fields and Enyedy (2013) have shown how gamers being positioned and acknowledged as experts in classrooms requires much interactional work by participants. As Squire (2005) has shown, a teacher’s informed use of computer games in his or her classroom can create a situation in which some students feel uneasy when having to perform identities in school that are developed around game play in settings outside school. According “Glitching” is when a person uses flaws in a game to achieve something that was not originally designed by the game designers. 1 to Hanghøj (2011), students might experience genre clashes in regard to what they expect of a computer game. When presented with the educational computer game Global Conflicts: Latin America, different classes of secondary students expected to explore a complex interactive game world, but several students were turned off by the lack of in-game actions and the considerable chunks of text to be read, which in many ways resembled the familiar design of a textbook. This demonstrates how computer games, which have a clear pedagogical purpose, belong to a different genre than the commercial games that students play outside school. A learning environment in which students are provided the opportunity to engage with an educational game might create a conflict of interest between the teacher’s assumption (that the educational game will motivate and engage students) and the students’ expectations (that the educational game will offer the same experiences provided by commercial games played outside school). Thus, realizing games as learning resources requires well-considered learning designs in which the teacher clearly articulates the aim of playing and reflects on multiple aspects that might influence the success or failure of game-based learning. THE TEACHER AS FACILITATOR Research has shown the crucial importance of the teacher in planning, framing, enacting, and assessing gameoriented learning environments (Freitas & Maharg, 2011; Freitas & Oliver, 2006; Hontvedt, Sandberg, & Silseth, 2013; Wouters & van Oostendorp, 2013). For example, the teacher might have an important role in bringing together different players’ divergent experiences with the game, guiding them through the process of connecting game play to the curriculum, and making the process relevant for students as learners (Squire & Barab, 2004). Sandford and colleagues (2006) have explored the use of commercial games in education. Their study document how a teacher’s knowledge of the curriculum and competence in applying it in practice is more significant for students’ learning with a game than teachers’ competence in playing the game in question. The findings also show that the success of game-based learning in educational settings is highly dependent on a teacher’s awareness and interpretation of students’ capacities, as well as on whether the teacher manages to strategically use games as resources for obtaining well-articulated learning objectives. Computer games are not good learning resources by themselves; rather, they are thematizable artifacts that must be realized as learning resources in practice (Linderoth, 2004). Silseth (2012) has shown how the teacher has a crucial role in constituting the computer game as a learning resource. Competence in playing computer games outside school might be relevantly invoked when students engage in game play as part of curriculum-guided teaching. However, the findings show that such competence might not be enough to foster subtle understanding of the topic addressed in the game. The constitution of a computer game as a learning resource is a highly collaborative activity in which multiple resources for meaningmaking are in play and shed light on what might be characterized as student–teacher interactions that contribute to students’ subtle understanding. The findings also show how a teacher could use resources in the game (personal and concrete stories from different sides of the conflict) when facilitating discussions on different aspects of the curricular topic. By making the students use personal stories from the game as resources for providing accounts and evaluations of what happened during game play, the teacher creates dialogic spaces in which the different voices of the conflict inter-animate each other. In addition, the findings show that, to realize the potential of gamebased learning in educational practices and enable students to develop comprehensive understanding of the topic addressed in the game, it is important for the teacher to find ways of creating a learning environment that connect in-school and out-of-school experiences with a topic. Similarly, Silseth and Arnseth (2011) have shown how participants use stories, categories, and inscriptions to construct different learning selves that have significance for students’ participation when they play Global Conflicts: Palestine. Conflicts among the relevance of the different learning selves occur. Some learning selves are seen as relevant by the teacher and others by students; however, these learning selves stand in a dialogical relationship to each other. This type of negotiation has implications for students’ participation, but students also have agency in this process. In addition, the study suggested that students would not uncritically embrace games as tools for learning in school, that the relevance of using a game for learning about a curricular topic is negotiated through student–teacher interactions, and that game-based learning should be seen with regard to how students are constructed as learners. Focusing on teachers’ pedagogical approaches to games, Hanghøj and Hautopp (2016) have shown how teachers adopted quite different positions when teaching a Minecraft curriculum at three different primary schools. The findings suggest that teachers’ positioning toward game-based teaching can be categorized in terms of an “executive approach,” which reflects a high degree of teacher control of the game setting, as well as the teachers’ limited curricular knowledge of the game; an “improvisational approach,” which suggests a student-centered and open-ended exploration of the game world with a limited focus on curricular aims; and, finally, a “transformational approach,” in which the teacher takes ownership of Minecraft as a design tool to develop new curricular content to meet local needs and aims. The findings indicate that teachers’ pedagogical approaches to games are highly important in terms of framing what counts as legitimate curricular aims and practices in the classroom. Moreover, the findings emphasize that teachers need to acquire basic game literacy in relation to specific games in order to adapt games to their existing teaching repertoires and avoid either “being played by” or “playing against” the game in question. Based on the findings described above, we will now characterize and describe a pedagogical model for researching and designing how games can become tools for teaching and learning. GAMES AS TOOLS FOR DIALOGIC TEACHING (THE GTDT MODEL) In our model, we address several issues; some are classical didactical categories and others are more specifically related to games. The classical questions in didactics circle around what should be learned, how it should be taught, and why it should be taught and learned. The recommendations of our framework articulate the need for making some of the principles of a dialogic pedagogy relevant to game-oriented learning. We want to try to identify and support specific forms of dialogue in and around games and connect games to specific learning goals and objectives. The GTDT model considers the following aspects: Figure 1: The GTDT model The model consists of five different dimensions that should be taken into account to create a dialogic space for learning. This is where the actual practice of game-oriented learning and teaching through dialogue is realized in action. We briefly go through all these dimensions in detail before we draw them together and provide examples. The model is not sequential in any strict sense. Teachers need not start with the learning goals; they could have an idea about a game that might be interesting, or the pupils themselves and their interests could even constitute the starting point for planning an activity. 1) The learning goals and knowledge domain are about what the teacher wants to achieve with the activity and what in what direction he or she wants the activity to develop. It can be about learning a skill, learning about a particular domain, or learning about a particular concept. These things can also be intertwined in one activity. It is of course useful to anchor the learning goal in the curriculum. In regard to this dimension it is also crucial to consider how knowledge is structured, about what constitute important concepts and how they are related to one another as part of a system. It is crucial to be able to assess whether a game or a feature of a game can mediate a certain concept correctly or accurately and, if not, how the particular contrast can be made into a specific topic for reflection. 2) Reflection and assessment relates to how students and teachers talk about experiences in the game and relate their experiences to particular learning goals. Reflection is also about assessing what happened and connecting experiences in a game to situations and practices beyond the game. Reflection can be metaphorically oriented, focusing on differences, or metonymic, focusing on similarities across contexts. Reflection and assessment can be both formative and summative; they can be done during or after an activity. 3) Digital games come in many shapes and genres. Sometimes the sheer availability of games can be overwhelming. It is useful to learn from other teachers’ experiences in terms of what games might be relevant for realizing different learning goals. We find it useful to distinguish among the representations in the game, the game narratives’ given voice, and the actual game mechanics. Representations can be about how, for instance, certain events, milieus, or phenomena are represented in the game. Narratives are about how the game tells certain stories about events. Mechanics are about how the game plays out and responds to actions, and how participants can make sense of that. 4) Learner positioning is about the learner and the experiences he or she brings to the particular game-oriented activity. It is crucial for the teacher to have some idea about what experiences students have with particular games, what kind of identities they usually take on in different subjects and activities in the classroom, and their motivation and engagement relating to game-based learning. What students do in game-oriented learning activities is always mediated by their previous experiences, and the teacher needs to build on and challenge those precepts. 5) Dialogic moves are about the particular mediating tools the teacher can make use of when talking to students. These forms of talk can support, challenge, or problematize students’ accounts, thereby fostering conceptual and personal development through dialogue. These moves can be the following types of utterances: explaining, clarifying, justifying, elaborating, deliberating, exploring, and revoicing. The dialogic effect of these utterances cannot of course be predicted in advance. Their functioning in dialogue depends on how students and teachers negotiate the meaning of such resources in joint learning activities. Now, these dimensions are drawn into and become part of what we called a dialogic space. The dialogic space is constituted by participants using and orienting toward these dimensions and relating them to one another as part of an educational practice. In and through participation in this dialogic space, the meaning and sense of these dimensions become available to participants, and the space is constructed as a meaningful and perhaps productive learning activity for students. This meaningful framework enables students relate their game play to certain purposes and to connect what they experience in the game with the overall goals of the lesson. Creating and maintaining the space provides the integrating principle for the classroom activities. It is what ties all the other activities together. Thus, the learning goals should not be introduced as fixed. Instead, students should be encouraged to explore and develop their understanding of the topic in question. The teacher can shift among introducing topics, questions, and learning tools; asking questions; clarifying issues and requesting clarification; encouraging students to predict what will happen; summarizing activities; encouraging comparisons; and pointing to relevant knowledge. PLANNING FOR GAME-ORIENTED LEARNING IN THE CLASSROOM After having introduced the different dimensions in our model, we illustrate how they can be used when planning and realizing game-oriented learning activities in the classroom. In teaching and in design-based research, we usually start with the learning goals, but as mentioned, the model does not prescribed this particular sequence. What is it that the teacher wants the students to learn, and how can games be employed to reach these goals? Let us say that the teacher wants students to learn about geometry in mathematics. Many specifically designed computerized learning tools are tailored to this topic, but the teacher can also use Minecraft to support this aim. When Minecraft become integrated within the framework of a dialogic game pedagogy, the learning goals and the game become dialogically related and one makes no sense without the other within the context of the classroom. Using Minecraft can enable the teacher to realize other goals, as well, namely connecting to pupils’ interests and situating the knowledge domain within a broader context. Now, in relation to game elements, we mentioned three aspects. Which one of these is highlighted also depends on the learning aims. For instance, if the learning aim is to learn about Renaissance architecture, Assassins Creed III might be a useful and relevant learning tool. Particularly the representational and narrative aspects of the game become important resources for developing students’ understanding. Students can learn about Renaissance architecture or ways of life during this particular period and connect these representations to knowledge about architecture or history. In regard to reflection, there is a need for the teacher to enable students to reflect on their actions and experiences and to monitor whether what they know and learn are aligned to authorized ways of learning and knowing. In this sense, reflection also involves self-assessment. Promoting reflection in and on game play is crucial to help students create relevant meanings from their game play. By addressing and articulating particular game situations, teachers can help students build new knowledge and challenge their existing beliefs and values. This also allows assessment of how students relate to the relevant knowledge that develops through game play. In this activity, assessment is built into the actual game play and the reflection on game play in group or whole-class discussion. Of course, this does not mean that the teacher cannot or should not use more summative forms of assessment. In terms of learner positioning, the teacher needs to consider students’ previous experiences. If pupils in the classroom are very good at playing Minecraft, it might be useful to give them roles and assignments as experts, which can help other students who do not have the same experience. Of course, the entire class of students does not have to play the same game. The teacher can also design work in group with different games and then compare and contrast in whole-class sessions. Learner positioning can also be about how particular learners get to play certain roles and positions in the game. The teacher can use different kinds of approaches here, for instance, designing activities where a student plays a role in a game that contrasts with other identities, thereby creating opportunities for comparison and reflection and, perhaps, sustained engagement. How the teacher supports and talks with students represents another crucial issue. In our model, inquiry and dialogue are crucial goals; therefore, we encourage teaching methods that involve reciprocity and multiple perspectives and positions. Thus, the use of the storyline or representations of architecture in Assassin’s Creed needs to become an object of reflection and dialogue. The teacher can encourage students to inquire into particular aspects of the game as a text; he or she can also inspire students by asking specific questions to guide their inquiry—preferably not closed questions but rather open questions that encourage active exploration. These experiences then become the starting point for more elaborate dialogues within groups or the class. Here, students are encouraged to give voice to their experiences in the game and inquiries into the game as a textual artifact. Their voice requires recognition by the teacher, but it can of course be problematized. Finally, the teacher can encourage students to reflect on how different voices relate to one another and form different genres, activities, or practices. This latter approach encourages students to develop meta-media literacy. As suggested in the relational model, there may be many different pedagogical strategies when teaching with a game. In some cases, the emphasis may be deductive, for example, when students are first introduced to specific curricular concepts or topics (e.g., the Israeli–Palestinian conflict) before exploring the phenomenon on their own by playing the game Global Conflicts: Palestine (Silseth, 2012). In other cases, the emphasis could be more inductive, for example, by letting middle-school students first actively explore a commercial game, such as the action role-playing game Torchlight II, and articulate what challenges they encountered in the game and how they could improve their in-game tactics before making it clear how specific mathematical knowledge (e.g., of fractions or percentages) might provide students with in-game advantages when utilizing their game resources (Hanghøj, 2015). Summarizing the GTDT model and the above discussion, we suggest the following educational design principles for educators, which are aimed at fostering dialogic spaces in and around students’ game experiences. Thus, dialogical game pedagogy emphasizes teachers’ ability to do the following: - Facilitate dialogue through open and authentic questions, which relates to both specific game experiences and learning aims. Through dialogue, students’ game experience should become meaningful in relation to specific curricular topics. Likewise, teacher-led dialogue should develop students’ curricular knowledge so that they better understand or make more informed choices within a game. The teacher should be aware of whether he or she wishes to adopt deductive or inductive pedagogical strategies for linking a game with curricular aims. - Challenge students’ experience of specific game mechanics, game rules, or game outcomes as being monological truths. Games should be seen as contingent artifacts, where different choices can lead to many different consequences. Thus, it is important to foster students’ critical thinking around the underlying model of learning or representations of a specific game. - Identify different voices of specific games and among students-as-players to show different perspectives on a given subject matter. In this way, games can be used as a discussion tool to represent positions that are not necessarily present among students. - Reflect on students’ ability to collaborate through dialogue both within and around the game. It is important to set up guidelines for collaborative dialogue that match the specific game design being used. As an example, single-player games may require students to work in pairs, where they take turns at playing and engage in common dialogue around their game decisions. On the other hand, multi-player games allow all students to engage more directly in collaboration, which requires players to develop a set of shared ground rules on what characterize meaningful or valuable group dialogue. OPENING UP SPACES OF POSSIBILITIES In this chapter, we have tried to formulate a dialogic pedagogy for game- and play-based teaching. We want to put this model forward as a planning, teaching, and evaluation tool for teachers and educators interested in utilizing games for learning, but also as a model for design-based research. We do not believe that it is possible to formulate a generic and absolute model for game-based teaching. This would contrast with our dialogic approach to meaningmaking. Still, we believe the model and the design principles can work as tools for making informed choices when introducing games into the classroom. As has become clear throughout our chapter, we do not believe that games and game-based learning will necessarily revolutionize education. On the contrary, we want to make the more modest claim that, given that games are informed by clearly formulated pedagogy, games can become interesting tools for and worlds in which not just to push students’ understanding further, but also to change education and make it more relevant and interesting. 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AFFILIATIONS Hans Christian Arnseth Department of Education, University of Oslo, Norway Thorkild Hanghøj Department of Communication and Psychology Aalborg University, Denmark Kenneth Silseth Department of Education University College of South East Norway