Constructionist Gaming e Didattica della Storia: Esperienze a Confronto

Constructionist Gaming, an approach that engages students in the educationally oriented design of playful artifacts, is a tool capable of responding to the pressing need to train individuals who are ready to face the complexity of the twenty-first century. Its application to history teaching fits neatly within the context of Public History and can foster in individuals a set of skills ranging from twenty-first-century skills to the core competences of academic historical research. This contribution compares three different Constructionist Gaming activities focused on the production of different playful artifacts: board games (*L’Ultimo Viaggio sulla Via della Seta* and *Cuius Regio, Eius Religio*), a role-playing game (*Ianua 1600*), and a gamebook (*Il Gesuita Scomparso*). Carried out within three Modern History courses at the University of Genoa, the results of these activities highlight the great dynamic and combinatory potential of Constructionist Gaming: a flexible approach that sees the variety of target artifacts as an opportunity to cultivate different abilities, competences, and forms of expertise, allowing students to engage, each time, with different design and narrative grammars. This is achieved while ensuring, regardless of the target artifacts, positive outcomes in terms of skills development, engagement, and the promotion of historical abilities and competences.