ABSTRACT
Pedagogical innovations in the gaming hobby and an explosive growth in the board game industry have introduced new ideas in game design, alternative approaches to game-play, and curricular opportunities involving games that did not exist previously. Gaming can begin to challenge a precedent whereby schooling initiates young students into an environment that can be tedious and coercive. While working in the classroom with the coauthor, Jennifer consistently sees students resist traditional attempts to convince them that school “work” is valuable. Giving children the opportunity to build their conceptual reservoirs, however, is only one part of the puzzle: Educators must also allow the students to encounter, explore and develop the communicative strategies and empower them to choose when and how to apply their strategies. The concept of “disruptive innovations” originally focused on technological innovations that change established the business models.
