WHAT GIVES? Cultivating Agency, Relationships, and Possibility in Wicked Systems
Session Description
How might play cultivate curiosity, care, and agency when facing complex challenges? In this interactive session, participants will play through a portion of What Gives?, a collaborative game that invites players to make decisions, consider different perspectives, and revise their approach as new information emerges. Together, we’ll explore how gameplay and reflection help learners question assumptions, attend to relationships, and reframe problems. Participants will consider ways to bring the game into their teaching or practice, cultivating design thinking through experimentation, shared learning, and attention to whose experiences inform our decisions.
Â鶹ÊÓƵ Maja Anderson
Maja Anderson is an educator and designer who teaches at Cornell University, Radford University, and Tompkins Cortland Community College. Her work spans human-centered design, storytelling, media and emerging technologies, and experiential learning, with a focus on cultivating agency, curiosity, and connection through creative practice. She holds an MFA in Human-Centered Design and an MA in Learning and Emerging Technologies. Through making, play, and reflection, she invites students to explore complex challenges, learn alongside others, and develop ideas together through listening, experimentation, and attention to different perspectives.