Historical Perspectives on Games and Education from the Learning Sciences

This paper reviews three classic theorists’ writing on games, learning, and development. Piaget, Vygotsky, and Bruner all wrote about games and play as important to thinking and learning. This review attempts to synthesize their perspectives as a means to revisit underused theoretical perspectives on the role of games in education. The views of Piaget and Vygotsky are applied with respect to the role of games and play in learning and development to the design of a popular commercial game. Bruner’s perspective offers the embodiment of games into a larger and controversial curriculum intended to teach young people about human culture. Each of the perspectives is reviewed and considered in light of new gaming technologies and their potential for educational change.