Educational games share certain challenges with all serious games. A successful educational game needs to be both a good game and educational. Obvious, but many teams focus on one aspect and include either the game developer or educator as an after-thought. The result is either games that don’t teach or games that children won’t play. How do you determine at what level of mathematics (or any subject) a student should begin? How do you know if students learned something and how do you prove that your game was the cause? The educational component must target, teach, test and track. Is a game where the novelty effect never wears off an oxymoron? These questions will be answered, based on both the research literature, as well as our own data, from the first two years of research on using games to raise mathematics scores of students attending schools on American Indian reservations.
4. Used multiple regression analysis
Culture score was significant but NOTE !! – it is
coded so that lower scores mean less cultural
activities, .e.g. “Do you speak your language at
home?” 1= Yes 2 =No
Mother’s education was significant
School climate was significant
Student absenteeism was significant
5. Not willing to choose between culture
and academic achievement
We submitted a proposal to USDA to develop a computer game to teach language, culture and
mathematics
6. Questions to answer
What makes a game “educational” ?
What makes something a game ?
How do you select the right game for
your students?
7. How do you know
Level of mathematics (or
any subject) where a
student should begin?
If students learned
something?
If your game was the
cause?
9. Is he really learning?
What you don’t know about
educational games can
hurt you
10. Educational game design
Common Core aligned
Research-based
Scaffolding
Individualized instruction
Data Driven
Test
Track
11. Educational game effect
High degree of time on task
Shows improvement from
pretest to posttest
Even better if the
improvement is higher than
the control group
13. Why Common Core?
What students are learning in a
game is the same as what they
are learning in the classroom,
Game strengthens and
supplements the work of
teachers.
15. Common Core Helps
What math standards describe what
your students need to learn next?
“Understand a fraction as 1/b when a
whole is divided into b parts”
“Add fractions with like denominators”
16. The Goldilocks Effect :
For both mathematics and gaming,
the best level of difficulty is just
right, not too hard so as to be
frustrated and not so easy as to be
bored.
17. You have been warned
Grade level is far less obvious
than it seems
18. How we do it
Start with the state standards
Write math challenge, instructional
activities and assessment
19. STANDARD
Express whole numbers as fractions, and
recognize fractions that are equivalent to whole
numbers. Examples: Express 3 in the form 3 = 3/1;
recognize that 6/1 = 6
30. Game Example
Build a model movie: Teaches concept
Good for LEP because language is
Repeated
In context
Visual cues
31. Software can be
Bad education and a bad game
Good education but a bad game
Good game but bad education
Good game and good education for some
students
44. No number of interns = actual children
Did you think,
“Hey, I’d like to
ride on that deer?
45. Good games
“Achievement principle ... there are intrinsic
rewards from the beginning, customized to
each learner’s level, effort and growing
mastery and signaling the learner’s ongoing
achievements.”
46. In other words, our second game was …
Game was too hard to play and students “died” so
often they did not get to many math problems
“Too many damn snakes!”
47. Good games
“Learners can take risks in a
space where real-world
consequences are lowered.”
“If you have 8 people sick
and you need 3 herbs for
each person to make
medicine, how many do
you need?”
48. Why do the same students who give up when math is too
hard play games where every level gets more difficult?
49. What I learned from a fourth-grader
“I don’t pay
attention in math.”
56. How can a game keep being new?
2-D to 3-D and back again
First person to third person
Location
Time period
Characters
Games within games
59. Problems we run into
1. Wrong hardware – only runs on Mac, Windows, iPad,
Android
2. Wrong software – won’t run on Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8,
Mac OS X Lion etc.
61. You have been warned ..
There are a lot of older computers out there
Windows XP is 12 years old and 13% of U.S. computers still run
it
About 20% of Macs run Snow Leopard (Mac OS 10.6), which is
five years old
62. Students are more likely to have older
operating systems
What gaming companies know ….
Children are more likely to have
older computers because they often
get mom’s or dad’s old one
63. No, there is NOT an app for that
Because of the
processing power
required, iPad and
other tablet games
tend to be simpler –
in graphics, in
design
64. Problems we run into
3. Requires Internet connection that is blocked by school
security
4. Requires faster Internet connection than is available
65. Security requirements vary
NEVER plan a lesson using a game
you haven’t tested in that school
Test in the school before you plan
to use in your classroom
Have a back-up plan
So, scores do go up with parental education but the gap is not closed. As parents with less education have children who do worse in school part of the difference may be due to this SES factor. Also, note that we do know that AI/ AN parents are less likely to have graduate degrees so that comparison by college graduate is not exactly equal education, as non-Indians include a larger percentage of people with graduate degrees
Seems to be assumption that a student sitting at a computer is learning. Hey, it’s technology, right? And he’s on task – look he has his hand on the mouse! What you don’t know about educational games can hurt you - mostly by taking up class time that could be spent more productively.
You need to not only teach but also test and track
I don’t know how many of you saw the movie, Mask, but there is a brilliant scene in it where the mother goes to sign her son up for middle school in their new district and the principal looks at him and says, I don’t know that we are prepared to meet his needs and she comes back, Well do you teach Biology, Algebra and English here? Because those are his needs
If you wanted to find a common core hater, you’ve come to the wrong place. Like most people, I suppose, I have some issues, but
The youngest person who completed Spirit Lake – aimed at 4th & 5th graders BUT Many schools where we have piloted our games, not one single student in grades 4-6 was "at grade level" making it a nonsensical concept. Now, instead of grade level, we talk about the standards that our games teach.
Write a math challenge, instructional activities and assessment that is consistent with computerized testing AND with research on effective instruction.
Forces student to pause at least momentarily before answering.
Student can choose when he or she needs a hint.
If student asks for a hint, they get What is 33 divided by 3. If they answer 30 , they get a hint if they are using subtraction instead of division. If they answer 99, they get a hint asking if
( Scarcella, 2003).
There really aren’t any games that are good for all students. One of the benefits of using common core (or any other) standards are that they give you an idea at least the material for students to learn
Cool math space multiplication
If I could do one thing to change educational games in schools, it would be to decrease the amount of reliance I see on IXL. There is nothing terribly wrong with IXL except that it is misunderstood by many users. Many problems are just electronic flash cards
Even though it is clear that I subtracted instead of added, it does not tell me that, nor is there any way for the teacher to know that.
Not perfect – first screen starts with “They are a strategy to help us learn to multiply” which might present a challenge to ELL students
So, if the student has a better grasp of written English than spoken, it reinforces their knowledge of English either way WHILE teaching math. So, it is good education, but is it a good game?
N = 88, N with complete data = 62. Only difference between missing and nonmissing is students from control group more likely to have incomplete data
Our initial testing starts with sitting next to 5 or 6 students at the target grade level, as they play the game. No matter how many college student interns you have play the game, nothing substitutes for actual children who will
Try to ride the deer you expect them to shoot
Climb down from a tree to make friends with the rabid wolves
Wander in the opposite direction of the clearly defined path just to see what is out there
Be puzzled by how to enter a fraction
Not know the word “denominator” or “quotient” or …
Use a pencil and paper to compute answers to questions in the game
No. No, you did not.
Gee (2003, p.207-208) identifies learning principles of good games.
Gee (2003) asks two related questions.
When I asked this young lady a question from one of our games, “If you have 8 people sick and you need 3 herbs for each person to make medicine, how many do you need?” This was her response. All of the educational design in the world is not going to be effective if students won’t play your game.
Graphics
Rabbits that turn and look at you when you click on them. Deer that run away. An eagle that flies over heard and drops a feather.
Die and you may see a video clip on Sioux views of after life.
How to keep the novelty effect from wearing off? All of the above PLUS switching from
These are not trivial issues at all. I reviewed a lot of software preparing for this presentation and some that looked really great just weren’t available for any current operating systems.