Learning through play, experience and discovery
You want students to do more than understand concepts. You want them to apply what they know, make choices, collaborate, solve problems and learn from what happens.
Sometimes a lecture, seminar or traditional assignment isn’t the best way to get there. A well-designed game can create a learning environment in which students actively engage with a problem, experience the consequences of their choices and reflect on what they learn.
That’s where Game-Based Learning can add something different to a course or curriculum.
What is Game Based Learning?
Game Based Learning (GBL) goes far beyond playful exercises or quizzes. It’s about purposefully designed learning experiences built on the principles of games. Participants are invited to make choices, experiment, and collaborate, just like in real-life practice.
Game-Based Learning can help create opportunities for:
- Engagement – games spark curiosity and motivation.
- Deeper learning – participants apply ideas, make choices and reflect on the consequences.
- Collaborative learning – teamwork, communication, and reflection take center stage.
- A safe space – mistakes are part of the process and lead to insight.
Why the Two of Us
For Game-Based Learning, I work together with Jasper van Winden, Head of Educational Innovation at Utrecht University’s Centre for Academic Teaching and Learning and an experienced designer and facilitator of serious games.
We combine expertise in learning and curriculum design with game design, facilitation and, admittedly, a shared love of board games. The result is never a game for the sake of playing a game. We start with what people need to learn and design from there.
What we offer
Together, we combine our experience in education, learning design, and creativity to craft learning experiences that engage and endure:
- Custom-designed serious games – designed around your learning goals, curriculum and student context.
- Workshops and learning sessions – where students, educators or teams learn through playing, experimenting and reflecting.
- Co-creation and consultancy – to explore whether and how game-based learning could strengthen an existing course, curriculum or professional development programme.
From classroom to boardroom, we help shape learning that energizes, connects, and truly lasts.
Who it’s for
Game-Based Learning can be used in individual courses, across a curriculum or in professional development. We work with programme and curriculum teams, educators and educational developers who want learners to engage actively with complex questions, practise skills or experience situations that are difficult to recreate in a traditional classroom setting.
Curious to learn more?
Curious whether Game-Based Learning could add something to your course, curriculum or professional development programme?
Get in touch and discover how powerful learning through play can be.
You can message me here or email me at info@irmact.com.