Abstract
Whilst individual efforts to achieve social sustainability are positive, the challenges it poses are such that without a collective, proactive, and collective approach, intergenerational success for the most significant critical global issues will become a lost and irretrievable opportunity. Gamification is one pedagogical approach to engaging the collective in issues pertaining to social sustainability, where collective learning and engagement will be central to the creativity and innovation that can ensue. Capacity for critical reflexivity, rather than a reflective stance on the past, is needed to drive the perspective lens of transformation forward for a sustainable and pragmatically implementable future. The process of empowerment and the active gift of agency across educational contexts can be used to frame and contextualise key contemporary issues such as social justice, global poverty, climate, and ecological crisis, within the context of a holistic and humanitarian approach to developmental change and societal progression.
When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults and they enter society, one of the politer names of hell. That is why we dread children, even if we love them, they show us the state of our decay.
Brian Aldiss (1925-2017)
TopThe Notion Of Ludic Approaches For Sustainable Strategy Building
For the purposes of this chapter, ‘ludic’ is defined as the capacity to play or integrate games into everyday interaction and dialogue, of which issues surrounding social sustainability are an integral part. Delineating this from the conceptual foundation of ’serious play’ is important in terms of the relative purpose both can serve in the context of Higher Education (HE). Whereas serious play combines ideas from constructionism, which has been widely critiqued in relation to the seminal work of Piaget (Sutton-Smith, 1966) and its subsequent progressive development (Harel and Papert’s Complex Adaptive System Theory (1991) which was evaluated by Holland (1996) in terms of application to management and organisational infrastructure, ludic approaches are far less formal, and within them, a creative, lateral approach to thinking about complex issues is encouraged as a mechanism of ‘thinking outside the box.’ For current and topical issues which are often in a state of dynamic flux and require flexible and adaptable approaches to address, a ludic approach to strategic thinking and inferential planning can be an ideal means of ensuring all collaborative partners are afforded individual agency, alongside their collective contribution to informed strategic praxis. The author’s own pedagogical contributions to the literature have applied the concept of ‘serious play’ to learning and teaching in postgraduate level nursing (a contextually and situationally specific environment in United Kingdom (UK) HE). Within this research, the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® (LSP®) method was chosen for its specific capacity to engage students in activity that can lead to deeper reflection and collective constructive dialogue (Hayes, 2015). Albeit a contextually different setting, the pedagogical research of Dann (2018) echoes this work, in which he outlines the concept of knowledge co-creation with students. This approach offers important insight into the context of social social sustainability, which this chapter explores further.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Gamification: The transference and application of the characteristics of game playing to a formal context, such as Higher Education, with the purpose of enhancing capacity for creative thinking and the harnessing of internal motivation.
Emergence: Is the process of revealing something which has previously remained unseen or unrecognized; the outcome of emergence may be to challenge long held presuppositions or assumptions of knowledge.
Creativity: Is the use of collective or individual imagination or the capacity for fundamentally original ideas to create something; can often be used as a bridge to innovation in terms of the process of invention.
LEGO Serious Play®: An innovative and creative methodology for the formalization of gamification in a range of academic and business contexts; a means of articulating meaning making in learning environments.
Social Constructionism: A general sociological term, originating from the Chicago School which is often applied to theories that emphasize the socially created nature of social life. The original theory is traditionally traced back at least to the work of Thomas and the Chicago sociologists, as well as the phenomenological sociologists and philosophers such as Schutz. Such approaches emphasize the idea that society is actively and creatively produced by human beings.
Epistemic Cognition: Is can be most straightforwardly be defined as knowledge of pre-existing knowledge, particularly those which belie capacity for objective, subjective and tacit rationality; epistemic cognition is a central concept in relation to the notion of truth and verisimilitude.
Signature Pedagogy: Refers to the characteristic forms or styles of teaching and instruction that are common to specific professional disciplines, academic subjects or aspects of professional identity.
Metacognition: Part of the awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes; an integral component of the capacity for reflection and critical reflexivity.