Megan Freund
Designing for Equity in Education with Serious Play
The project explores serious play as a design method for supporting teachers in overcoming challenges to teaching social justice curricula in classrooms. It is a collaboration with Equitable Futures, a social justice U.S. History curriculum, and high school teachers across Metro Detroit. Co-design and participatory design methods, like generative toolkits and workshops, are used to examine how teachers approach teaching social justice to students, and how becoming aware of new possibilities for delivering this critical content furthers its expanse in schools. Engaging teachers in the affirming, creative, and joyful act of playing with others presents an opportunity to sustain participation in the pressing collective endeavor of making Michigan’s schools a place of learning for all students.
The Equitable Futures Serious Play Kit
The Equitable Futures Serious Play Kit includes wooden figures representing teachers and students, and wooden blocks, a play mat, and a set of prompt cards.
Designing the Equitable Futures Serious Play Kit in a workshop with a teacher in Oakland County.
Designing the Equitable Futures Serious Play Kit in a workshop with a teacher in Oakland County.
A teacher uses the Equitable Futures play kit to visualize how they teach social justice in their classroom.