The Active Instructor: Benefits and Barriers to Instructor-Led Serious Gaming

While there is a wealth of studies on the subject of serious games, the same cannot be said on the issue of teaching with games, especially in game-based learning settings with adult learners. Over the years, most research in this area has been focused on the `active substance(s)´ of games for learning, focusing mainly on characteristics of games, but often failing to take the whole context of game-based learning into consideration, such as the role(s) of the teacher. However, the past two or three years has seen a shift in focus from merely the game as an isolated artefact, to also include more discussions on how games can successfully be integrated into an educational setting, as well as challenges as pitfalls of which instructors need to be aware. This paper aims to outline the contemporary research on instructor-led serious gaming and its implications for the design of serious gaming environments.