Fostering student learning using a complexified educational strategy: A case study in higher education

This paper reports on the design and application of a complexified educational strategy for the administration and delivery of a course in game design at the University of Worcester, UK. We conceived an educational strategy following recommendations provided by Davis and Sumara (2006), aimed at generating conditions key to foster emergence of learning in educational complex-adaptive systems, namely specialisation, trans-level learning and enabling constraints. The strategy was designed through an iterative and adaptive process, informed by evidence and events emerging from the development of the course. The strategy fostered student collaboration, and allowed both students and tutors to deal with complex and unanticipated situations requiring adaptation. Data analysed so far indicates that teamwork was initially challenging for students, but collective learning emerged as the course developed, positively affecting teams’ performance. Students felt highly motivated and enjoyed working on the learning activities. Likewise, their progress and expertise levels were always perceived as high. Students’ academic performance was on average very good.