Exploring terms and proposing a framework for leadership learning through games.

To advance games as a teaching strategy, leadership educators may benefit from a common understanding of associated terms. However, achieving this purpose is complicated by no agreed upon definition of game and scholarly debate around terms such as gamification. This article explores gaming terms and proposes a framework intended to provide a common language for assessing, discussing, and writing about games for leadership learning.

Why use games for leadership learning?

Why should leadership educators trouble themselves in creating or implementing games for leadership learning? This chapter justifies the use of games as a teaching strategy in leadership education by exploring three rationales. First, games can be meaningfully tied to specific learning theories. Second, games provide motivation for learning, and finally, empirical evidence supports the use of games for leadership learning.

Calcineurin is an antagonist to PKA protein phosphorylation required for postmating filamentation and virulence, while PP2A is required for viability in Ustilago maydis.

Ustilago maydis is a dimorphic basidiomycete and the causal agent of corn smut disease. It serves as a genetic model for understanding dimorphism, pathogenicity, and mating response in filamentous fungi. Previous studies indicated the importance of regulated cAMP-dependent protein kinase A (PKA) for filamentous growth and pathogenicity in U. maydis. The roles of two protein phosphatases that potentially act antagonistically to PKA were assessed. A reverse genetics approach to mutate the catalytic subunits of calcineurin (CN, protein phosphatase [PP]2B) and PP2A in U. maydis was employed. A mutation in the CN catalytic subunit ucn1 caused a dramatic multiple-budding phenotype and mating between two ucn1 mutants was severely reduced. The pathogenicity of ucn1 mutant strains was also severely reduced, even in a solopathogenic haploid strain. Importantly, mutations disrupting protein phosphorylation by PKA were epistatic to ucn1 mutation, indicating a major role of ucn1 as a PKA antagonistic phosphatase. Genetic and inhibitor studies indicated that the U. maydis PP2A catalytic subunit gene (upa2) was essential.