PHILOSOPHICAL GAMES IN PRIMARY EDUCATION: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH

Abstract

"Philosophical games provide an innovative transformative structure in the learning process for all levels of formal education. The motivation is to provide elementary school teachers with an innovative methodology for Game-based-Learning of Philosophy/in Philosophy teaching. A combination and attentive collaboration of Philosophy, Art and games/ Game-based Learning provides new tools in approaching and solving the problems that education faces today. Since Game-based Learning constitutes a strong trend in technologically enhanced learning, is the, where/with the employment of gaming elements both in learning content and learning pathways, the proposed methodology leads to a series of novel applications about teaching philosophy that enable young agents to cultivate hypothetic-deductive and critical thinking with a positive attitude towards others and developing feelings of constructive antagonism. The teaching scenario proposed aims at cultivating hypothetic – deductive and critical thought/moreover, enhances the linguistic ability in the vocabulary of ancient Greek philosophy as well. The scenario is part of a game suite entitled “Entering the Socratic school” and targets 10–12-year-old children. It is easy to implement on any digital platform with open-source tools used by almost every teacher. The game elements rely on the structure of the learning content rather than on the digital tools themselves. The methodology consists in designing a concept map and defining the game narrative, the game levels and transitions between levels, the mechanics to be used, such as polls, badges, and leaderboards. Online activities include digital games such as quizzes and crossword puzzles, student generated comic stories, and a digital guide. They are complemented by physical activities involving movement and dialogue using fishbowl techniques and Socratic circles. The proposed teaching scenario will be implemented in the classroom in the following academic year and our work team applies interdisciplinary approaches inspired by at least three different fields of expertise."