Reimagining Boredom in Classrooms through Digital Game Spaces: Sociomaterial Perspectives (Routledge Research in Education)

This book challenges common understandings of boredom and disengagement in classrooms, taking a relational approach to boredom which looks beyond the usual distinctions between in-school and out-of-school practices. The book explores how a sociomaterial perspective can provide an alternative analysis of boredom as performative and as a phenomenon assembled in space and time rather than as a psychological attribute of the individual student. This perspective explores the affective experience of learning and how it is created in the classroom through assemblages of people, technology, objects and environment and the differing relations within them. Drawing on empirical data from a case study that compares formal learning and digital gaming practices in a group of secondary schools in England, the book suggests that by altering the affordances and constraints available in learning situations, we can prevent boredom and disengagement emerging in the classroom. This innovative book proposes that the mobility and dynamism of game spaces offer us new ways to re-imagine engagement in learning and will be of relevance to scholars, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of teaching and learning, digital gaming, educational philosophy and educational technology. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents List of illustrations Figures Table Acknowledgements Chapter 1: The problem with boredom Boredom in schools Affect and digital game spaces Hybrid practice in the global pandemic Conclusion References Chapter 2: Re-imagining boredom as a schooling phenomenon Introduction Boredom: definitions and theories Boredom as a phenomenon of schooling practices Boredom and pedagogy Boredom and hybrid learning Boredom: perceptions of time Boredom and attention Boredom and digital gaming Conclusion References Chapter 3: Becoming an assemblage ethnographer: A personal account Introduction Ethics in assemblage Other ethical considerations Emerging ethics Ethnographic issues Becoming part of the research assemblage Gaming ethnographer – Minecraft Club Experiencing assemblage ethnography – Minecraft Club Classroom experiences Teacher-ethnographer Ethnographic methods Recognising boredom Reassembling boredom: following the actors through synoptic units Conclusion Notes References Chapter 4: The assembling of boredom through spatio-temporal practices Temporal framings and affect in the classroom Spatial organisation in formal learning Game genres: assembling affect through spatio-temporal events First-person shooter games Vignette Rainbow Six Siege Sandbox games Games as boundary objects Summary Notes References Chapter 5: Practices, participation and agency: Feedback and modelling Introduction Feedback Embodied participation – handwriting Vignette – English Intervention as feedback Feedback in digital gaming Tutorial and instructional feedback Visual, audio and haptic feedback Performance and progress feedback ChatGPT – model answers Modelling and demonstrations Replay mode and reflection in digital gaming Vignette: replay in Clash of Clans Conclusion Notes References Chapter 6: Creating affective atmospheres in classrooms and digital gaming Introduction Puzzle games Escape rooms in education Digital escape rooms (DER) Vignette 1 – The cryptography lesson Vignette 2 – The Turing Test Conclusion Note References Chapter 7: Conclusion Re-imagining boredom Learning from research Final thoughts References Index This book challenges common understandings of boredom and disengagement in classrooms, taking a relational approach to boredom which looks beyond the usual distinctions between in-school and out-of-school practices. The book explores how a sociomaterial perspective can provide an alternative analysis of boredom as performative, and as a phenomenon assembled in space and time rather than as a psychological attribute of the individual student. This perspective explores the affective experience of learning and how it is created in the classroom through assemblages of people, technology, objects and environment and the differing relations within them. Drawing on empirical data from a case study which compares formal learning and digital gaming practices in a group of secondary schools in England, the book suggests that by altering the affordances and constraints available in learning situations, we can prevent boredom and disengagement emerging in the classroom. This innovative book proposes that the mobility and dynamism of game spaces offer us new ways to re-imagine engagement in learning and will be of relevance to scholars, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of teaching and learning, digital gaming, educational philosophy and educational technology.