Ludic Didactics: For an Inspired, Motivating and Playful Education

Abstract

The pandemic-related, rapid transformation of learning environments and scenarios into digital spaces gave new urgency to the differentiation of digital didactics. Many new didactic opportunities, but also major technological, social and methodological challenges, emerged. In the phase of exclusively online teaching in 2020, it became quickly evident that the sole transfer from analog to digital teaching was not effective: New designs for motivational learning scenarios were called for. This articles discusses art- and design-based experiments and methods in higher education learning scenarios, where a ludic sophistication of digital didactics was further developed. “Ludic didactics” encompass playful, game-based approaches, methods and settings that support and inspire teachers and learners in education. Thus, ludic didactics are understood more as a form of “playification” than “gamification”: Their playful mechanics and methods go beyond the still prevailing use of points, badges and leaderboards which are applied for learning incentives and feedback. In this paper we give examples and propose PHEW (Play/Hybrid/Easy/Walkabout), a set of “superpower” methods for ludic didactics.