Description
Tabletop Scholar Practitioner Workshop Day
Practical Tools for Play-Based Professionals
Board Game Academics is proud to present a professional development day featuring leading play-based professionals in tabletop games.
The Practitioner Workshop Day is a dedicated pre-conference experience created specifically for professionals who use or want to use tabletop games as tools in their work. It is a practitioner-first space focused on real-world application, shared learning, with practical takeaways. We will start the day with a keynote presentation that opens us to the wonder and success of tabletop games in professional practice, followed by a guided tour of The Strong National Museum of Play by museum professionals to highlight the historical, sociological, and psychological value of play. Then, attend one of our four professional tracks, and the day will be wrapped up with open tabletop play and networking at Millennium Games, the largest game store in the country!
Tabletop Scholar Practitioner Workshop Day Tracks
- Playing and Learning with Children – Hands-on strategies for engaging young learners through tabletop games.
- Engaging Adults Through Games – Practical approaches for teaching, training, or facilitating adults with play.
- Personal Growth and Professional Development – Using tabletop games for self-reflection, therapeutic practice, and skill building.
- Connecting Communities Through Play – Designing and facilitating group and community experiences with games.
Each track provides guidance, demonstrations, and supported practice designed to help you confidently integrate tabletop games into your professional toolkit. You will explore why games work, how to use them with intention, and what it looks like to apply them in real settings with real people.
Workshops emphasize facilitation, inclusion, accessibility, and reflection so you leave with tools you can use immediately in classrooms, counseling spaces, libraries, community organizations, training sessions, and other professional environments.
This workshop day is designed for practitioners across a wide range of professional settings, including educators, counselors, medical professionals, librarians, social workers, facilitators, community organizers, youth workers, trainers, and more!
No prior academic or practitioner experience is required. This professional development day is for everyone who loves tabletop games and has always wanted to bring the wonder and knowledge of the tabletop to their job.
