Playful Learning 2026 Programme
The Forest of Reason: Experiencing a Playful Critical Thinking Game in the Woods
Lead Author: Abbie Edgar
Additional authors: Ian Johnston and Laura Barclay
Timetable: Thursday Session 7: 14:30-15:15, Outdoors (Gallery 2 if raining)
Description:
Step into the woods to playtest our prototype of ‘The Forest of Reason’, a critical thinking game designed for postgraduate learners across disciplines, that we intend to make open access online. This 45-minute outdoor session invites delegates to move, explore, and think together while contributing ideas for an online learning resource that will be freely available for use in their own institutions (Wood, 2024).
Critical thinking is widely recognised as a core postgraduate skill, yet it is often experienced by students as abstract, intimidating, and difficult to transfer across contexts. Research suggests that game-based learning and narrative approaches can support deeper engagement with complex cognitive skills by providing safe spaces for exploration, failure, and reflection (Whitton, 2014; Gee, 2007). Similarly, embodied and place-based learning approaches highlight how movement, metaphor, and environment can support sense-making and meaning construction (Beames, Higgins and Nicol, 2012; Kolb, 1984). This session brings these strands together by using an outdoor, playful process to inform the development of a critical thinking game.
The session is structured around three themed ‘thinking stations’, each anchored to a tree. Working in three small groups, delegates will work through either:
• The Foggy Clearing – spotting assumptions
• The Glimmering Grove – evaluating evidence
• The Tanglewood Path – evaluating arguments
Delegates will work through the task linked to that station of the game. Forest elements are used as recurring discussion prompts across all three stations. For example, delegates may encounter talking animals, colourful mushrooms and insight leaves. These mechanics prompt players to apply critical thinking skills such as taking a moment to pause, ask questions, weigh evidence, extract information in a different way, or decide who or what to trust or ignore! The tactile and visual metaphors are intentionally designed to make invisible thinking processes visible, supporting playful yet rigorous engagement with critical thinking concepts.
The ‘insight leaves’ will help the groups to capture and contribute their ideas using a Ketso-inspired framework (Quinn-Walker and Mejia-Mejia, 2026). These ‘insight leaves’ enable structured creativity and collective sense-making, supporting inclusive participation and ensuring that all voices are heard. Delegates will use them to provide feedback and highlight common postgraduate misconceptions that could be embedded into the final game. No prior experience of Ketso or game design is required; the process is intuitive, collaborative, and highly adaptable.
Delegates will experience playful learning first-hand through movement, discussion, and embodied sense-making in a natural environment. The session models how low-tech, outdoor playful approaches can meaningfully inform the design of high-impact digital learning tools, aligning with research that emphasises co-creation, authenticity, and learner agency in educational design (Bovill, 2020).
References, web links and other resources:
Beames, S., Higgins, P. and Nicol, R. (2012) Learning outside the classroom: Theory and guidelines for practice. London: Routledge.
Bovill, C. (2020) ‘Co-creation in learning and teaching: The case for a whole-class approach in higher education’, Higher Education, 79(6), pp. 1023–1037.
Gee, J.P. (2007) What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. 2nd edn. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kolb, D.A. (1984) Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Quinn-Walker, N., and Mejia-Mejia, A. (2026). ‘Student Partnership and Peer-Led Learning: Applying the Ketso Method in Public Health Education’ Innovations in Pedagogy and Technology, 2(1), pp.38–48.
Whitton, N. (2014) Digital games and learning: Research and theory. London: Routledge.
Wood, C. (2024) ‘Heutagogy and outdoor learning: Designing postgraduate studies that support self-determined learners’, in Garnham, W. and Oprandi, P. (eds.) Outdoor Learning in Higher Education: Educating Beyond the Seminar Room. 1st edn. Routledge, pp. 15–24.