From Gaming to Decision-making: Bridging the Theory-Practice Gap in Urban Planning Education via a Challenge-Based Digital Twin Framework

This Teaching Start-up Grant (TSG) proposes the integration of Serious Games and Challenge-Based Learning (CBL) into the postgraduate course CA5236 Transportation and Land Use. The project transforms Cities: Skylines, augmented through rigorously calibrated, research-grade modifications, into a high-fidelity Digital Twin virtual laboratory. This platform will enable students to visualise, test, and critique the dynamic interactions between transport infrastructure and land-use systems in a controlled yet realistic urban environment.A long-standing challenge in urban planning education is the persistent visualisation gap between theoretical instruction and the dynamic nature of real-world urban processes. Students are routinely expected to understand multifaceted interactions such as Transit-Oriented Development (TOD), feedback loops associated with induced traffic demand, and the spatial consequences of zoning interventions. However, conventional pedagogies centred on lectures and static written assessments rarely capture the systemic, temporal, and emergent outcomes of planning decisions. As a result, learners often reproduce theoretical concepts in isolation yet struggle to anticipate how a single policy action (such as a rezoning initiative)may trigger wider ripple effects including congestion escalation, uneven land-value change, or socio-spatial segregation. This misalignment reflects a breakdown of Constructive Alignment: although learning outcomes emphasise dynamic systems thinking, assessment practices remain largely static and decontextualised.To address this pedagogical disconnect, the project introduces a Digital Twin virtual laboratory underpinned by the affordances of Serious Games: digital platforms intentionally designed for educational purposes rather than entertainment. Such environments provide three critical learning benefits: (1) immediate visual and quantitative feedback, allowing students to observe in real time how planning decisions reshape urban patterns; (2) a psychologically safe, low-stakes setting for experimentation, where failure becomes an essential learning mechanism rather than a risk; and (3) enhanced intrinsic motivation through structured challenges that sustain engagement across complex, multi-stage tasks. By repurposing Cities: Skylines as a multi-agent simulation tool, the project renders previously abstract urban processes visible, manipulable, and open to critique.The initiative further introduces an Urban Surgery pedagogy in which students work as consultants diagnosing pre-constructed “sick city” archetypes: urban scenarios deliberately embedded with specific pathologies such as severe congestion, transit deserts, or inequitable access to services. Building on Vygotskian Scaffolding, these designed scenarios place learners directly within their Zone of Proximal Development, reducing unproductive time spent on basic city-building and shifting focus towards higher-order diagnosis and intervention.In the practical component, structured role-play simulates participatory planning and multi-stakeholder negotiation. Students adopt complementary roles (e.g., public advocate, city administrator, and technical bureau) each responsible for distinct dimensions of impact assessment, fiscal governance, and engineering feasibility. This design compels negotiation and consensus-building, transforming learning from an individual cognitive exercise into an authentic, collaborative planning process.Ultimately, the project establishes a model of participatory, discovery-based learning aligned with CityU’s Discovery-enriched Curriculum (DEC). Beyond enhancing CA5236, the Digital Twin platform and its associated pedagogical framework will form a transferable teaching innovation that can be adopted across other CityU planning-related courses, supporting curriculum renewal in areas such as urban design, transport planning, environmental assessment, and smart city analytics.