Name: Joseph Amodei, MFA
Title: Developing 'Transformational Play': An Interdisciplinary Approach to Game-Centered Pedagogy
College/Department: College of Arts & Sciences, Theatre
Student Enrollment: 16-18
Course: THTR/ART 090:015 - Transformational Play: How Do Our Values Make the World Around Us?
Proposal: The fellowship will support the development of a new, studio-based course that uses game-centered pedagogy to help first-year students explore how play, creativity, and values shape the social, cultural, and technological worlds they inhabit. Through hands-on, interdisciplinary learning that integrates analog and digital games, theater, emerging technologies, and design practices, students will create interactive experiences that encourage ethical decision-making, collaboration, and critical reflection. The project will leverage the new Creativity and Play (CAP) Studio to foster active learning, experimentation, and multimodal making while introducing students to the potential of games as tools for inquiry, communication, and social change. By embedding these experiences early in students' academic careers, the course aims to empower them to become creative, engaged contributors who apply game-based thinking across disciplines and throughout their time at Lehigh.
Collaborators: Steve Sakasitz, Tarah Cicero, Chris Harvey