Curricular Unit

This world history curricular unit is designed around the game Sid Meier’s Civilization VI. The transformative usage of this game and curricular design can have significant effects on learner satisfaction and learning gains.

This unit follows a student-centered method and is “uniquely organized for a functional epistemology, where one learns through doing, through performance” (Squire, 2006, p. 22). Games help people learn by allowing them to not only experience something but also by doing.

Civilization VI is a great option for this because as an endogenous game, it promotes “doing, experimenting, and discovering for the purposes of action in the world” rather than simply memorizing (Squire, 2006, p. 24). Playing this game also creates more “possibilities for learning” than the “institutional constraints of [traditional] schooling” (Ito, n.d., p. 92).

Engagement is a key element required make significant learning gains. “The shift from passive to active learning, facilitated by…technologies, can have a profound effect on engagement” (Collins & Halverson, 2018, p. 75). This game and curricular unit force critical thinking and “encourage learners to confront existing beliefs, perform skills in context, and reflect on their understandings” (Squire, 2006, p.24). The use of this game to teach these concepts creates a “more participatory form of learning and media engagement" which can increase learner satisfaction and lead to higher learning gains (Ito, n.d., p. 115).