Designing Educational Games as a Learning Experience for Pre-Service Mathematics Teachers

Abstract

The design of educational games represents a promising approach to engaging pre-service teachers in active learning about mathematics teaching. Rather than relying solely on ready-made games, the process of designing educational games may foster deeper reflection on mathematical content, student learning, and instructional design. Through the process of creating a game, pre-service mathematics teachers must consider not only the mathematical concepts to be addressed but also the rules, structure, and dynamics that support meaningful learning through play. Such design activities may therefore serve as opportunities for developing pedagogical and didactic thinking during teacher preparation. This paper explores how pre-service mathematics teachers perceive the experience of designing educational games as part of their teacher education at the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics, Comenius University Bratislava. The participants were university students enrolled in a mathematics teacher preparation program who had designed an educational game intended for teaching mathematics at the lower or upper secondary school level. The participants engaged in designing educational games during the course Game-Based Mathematics Teaching. Data were collected through an open-ended questionnaire that invited participants to reflect on their experiences during the design process, including the challenges they encountered, the decisions they made, and what they believed they had learned from the activity. The responses were analyzed using thematic analysis in order to identify recurring themes in students’ reflections on the design process and its perceived educational value. The study aims to contribute to a better understanding of how designing educational games can function as a learning experience in the preparation of pre-service mathematics teachers and how such activities may support reflection on instructional design and student learning. The findings provide insights into the potential of game design activities as a component of mathematics teacher education and inform the integration of similar design-based learning tasks into teacher preparation programmes.