Innovating civic education in higher education through game-based learning. A hands-on experience in initial teacher education

Covid 19-emergency highlighted game-based learning as an innovative area of research (Reynalen et al., 2022) and the embedding of games in school curriculum has been emerging as a growing innovation (Shang et al., 2019). Research in higher education (Perla & Vinci, 2022) is showing attention to game-based activities to increase learners’ motivation and improve digital competence (Wiggins, 2016). We hereby report the expe- rience developed within the pre-service teachers’ laboratory at Primary Education course of Bari University using game-based learning as a pedagogical approach (Shah M., 2015; Boyle et al., 2016). Students have been engaged in working on the United Nation 2030 Agenda in primary school curricula: within civic education they have tried-out digital games and apps exploring possibilities of game-based learning and related teacher’s skills. Ob- jectives were technology integration into the classrooms and implementation of teachers’ key capabilities in game-based learning, exploring the emergence of a model of game literacy for teacher education (Rutkiene M., et al., 2021; Chen et al., 2020). Results of the activity are being collected through the administration of a que- stionnaire and a focus group and are showing students’ belief in successful educational outcomes of gamified ac- tivities and in the development of teacher’ efficacy in the curriculum implementation. Broad consent is on future teachers developing useful skills through gamified activities and higher education institutions providing inno- vative research-based training tools for teacher education.