GAMES, EDUCATION and Pedagogy

Research within the Manchester Game Centre focuses on the use of games in education, gameful approaches to learning and pedagogy, and game-making as a critical research and teaching and learning tool.

Staff and PGR students working in Games and Education

Kirsty Bunting is a Romance novelist and game-maker, exploring the use of narrative games in teaching creative writing, and its relationship to the consumption of fiction.

Mick Chesterman researches game making with families. Game Design Patterns are a particular area of interest, tapping the value design patterns as a way into learning coding.

Catherine Elkin is a Rise Experiential Learning Tutor facilitating interdisciplinary projects that encourage students to combine Python code with storytelling to create text-based adventure games. 

John Lean’s research examines the intersection of play, learning and democracy, and he is interested in the ways in which the philosophy and practice of higher education can be informed by games and play.

Beth Senior explores how practitioners can maintain their creative practice whilst working in education. She is passionate about widening participation in the arts and decolonising the curriculum in art subjects, looking at how it can be embedded into non-traditional discourse spaces.

MGC and Rise

Rise is Manchester Met’s groundbreaking co-curricular programme, through which students at all levels access a range of short- and long-term experiential learning activities in order to enhance their studies and connect to the world beyond university.

Rise is delivered through a digital platform which collates students’ activities using a points-system that converts activity into accreditation. The design of this system is built on critical readings of gamification drawing upon John Lean’s PhD thesis, and its development involves an increasingly sophisticated understanding of open-world games as a mechanism and metaphor for democratic student engagement.

Beyond our demonstrable impact on student outcomes, the Rise team are increasingly seen as sector leaders in experiential learning and have presented the games-related to colleagues across the sector including Kingston University, Kings College London and the QAA Quality Enhancement network. In addition John Lean has presented on the design-principles behind Rise at the international John Dewey Society and Playful Learning conferences, and John Lean and Catherine Elkin were interviewed on games design for the QAA podcast in 2023.

Playful Learning

Games Centre members are encouraged to get involve with the Playful Learning Association, and attend the Playful Learning Conference. Originating at Manchester Met, this will take place at University of Sussex in 2025 and 2026. Playful Learning is pitched at the intersection of learning and play for adults. Playful in approach and outlook, yet underpinned by robust research and working practices, it provides a space where teachers, researchers and students can play, learn and think together.

John Lean, along with other members of staff at Manchester Met, was on the team that won a 2024 CATE Award from Advance HE for their work in the Playful Learning Association. John co-chairs the conference and is happy to discuss how to get involved!

Writing recently for the Post45 Contemporary Literature cluster, former MGC member Rob Gallagher, and current co-directors Paul Wake and Chloé Germaine have written about their work bringing games into university English degree programmes.

The cluster was edited by Rebecca Roach and features articles on multicultural literature, AI, BookTok, and more.