DIVE: A Game-Development approach for creativity and digital literacy enhancement/ Norliza Kushairi

The Curriculum subject are perceived as boring, laden with facts to memorize, and less appealing to students who are increasingly drawn to games, emphasizing the need for a fresh approach. DIVE is an innovative project that employs game-development by integrating challenge-based, game-based, and authentic learning approaches. DIVE stands for Develop (D), Implement (I), eValuate (E) and Engage. It is a modified approach for game-based learning and a breakthrough strategy whereby students create their own games for their own learning in the subject. The objectives were to enhance students’ understanding on the subject while boosting their creativity (C5 and C6), digital literacy skill (LOC3d), develop their teamwork, responsibility and leadership skills (PLO9). They designed a storyboard by playing roles as heroic characters to solve a conflict in educational scenario. The ‘heroic character’ is a metaphor for a ‘curriculum developer’. While so doing, their understanding on the subject was boosted because they needed to relate with relevant curriculum theories. Under the aspiring mystery-mission theme “The Lost Books”, students are immersed as game developers, curriculum developers and evaluators. The impact on their creativity, digital literacy skill and soft skills was observed in their increased performance after the project which was also evidenced in the game and videos they produced. This project is a manifestation for me to prepare my students for sustainable future-ready education in a lifelong learning process.