Gaming and education: Challenges and Opportunities for Instructional Design

1. Gaming and education:Challenges and Opportunities for Instructional Design Shou-Bang Jian Anna Zhou 05/07/2013

2. Agenda • Research Project explained • Literature • Example: Sasha Barab • Formal education: promises and constraints • Implications for instructional design • Questions

3. IITG Project • SUNY IITG Grant, led by Dr. Peter Shea • Our vision is to mobilize a SUNY-wide, interdisciplinary, and collaborative effort to create a shared, inter-campus academic program that promotes collaboration and learning through the development of online college level courses in immersive environments, i.e., games, for learning STEM content. The common theme is that SUNY as a system can benefit from a collaborative, coordinated effort from campuses across disciplines to offer a new SUNY-wide academic program that bridges pre-college learners with college level coursework.. • Today’s presentation is based on our literature review

4. Why Games? • Games are integral to many young people’s lives. • “Net generation” (Oblinger, 2005) • “touch-screen” generation (Rosin, 2013) • Motivating and engaging students • “Engage me, or enrage me” (Prensky, 2005) • Recognition for educational potentials of games is growing among educators. • Gee (2003) • Research on game and education is also growing. • Young, et al. (2012). • Honey and Hilton (2012).

5. Affordances of games give new meanings to educational theories and instructional designs. For instance, • Active learning (i.e., learning by doing). • Interactive learning with environments. • Transformational play • Inquiry based instruction • Effective, sort of • Conceptual understanding • Representation • Question shifted from efficacy question(does it work?) to why and how questions (Why it’s effective and engaging, and how games can be integrated into learning and instructional design). (Van Eck, 2006)

6. Games, loosely defined • Games • Simulations • Virtual worlds • Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG)

7. Games, Simulations, Virtual Worlds

8. Games, Simulations, Virtual Worlds • Educational simulations: • rigorously structured; • using carefully designed strategies to develop specific competencies. • Can be less engaging. • Simulations are computational models of real or hypothesized situationsor natural phenomena that allow users to explore the implicationsof manipulating or modifying parameters within them (Clark et al., 2009). • Games: • usually for entertainment; • exposure to a particular set of tools, motions, or ideas; • played in a synthetic (or virtual) world structured by specific rules, feedback mechanisms, and requisite tools to support them; • not as rigorously structured as simulations. No structure for ensuring learning. • Another definition:“game”, or “a learning game”, as “a voluntary activity structured by rules, with a defined outcome (e.g., winning or losing) or other quantifiable feedback (e.g., points) that facilitates reliable comparisons of in-player performances”. (p. 63)

9. Virtual worlds: • multiplayer (and often massively multiplayer) 3D persistent social environments; • but without the focus on a particular goal; • context without content. (Second Life, for instance). • serious games: • having a learning objective (whether explicit or not), being an engaging interactive media, and having some game element. • FutureLab (2010).

10. Status of Literature • Overall, literature is uneven and inconclusive: • True Experimental studies with treatment/control groups design are very rare (Young, et al. 2012) • Two most recent attempts to conduct meta-analysis on games reach similar conclusions (Honey and Hilton, 2012; Young, et al., 2012) • Heuristic, speculative; action study • There are empirical evidence that in some research settings the use of games can achieve better learning outcomes, in different subject areas.

11. General findings confirm: • benefits for enhanced use of scientific discourse; • conceptual understanding; • identity development for science ; • enhanced understanding of science process skills and understanding of the nature of science. • Scale-up is still a challenge. • Let’s look at a successful example.

12. Example: Sasha Barab and transformational play • Vision of using videogames in instructional design (Barab, et al, 2012): • videogames can offer entire worlds in which learners are central, important participants; • a place where the actions one takes has a significant impact on the world; • and a place in which what you know is directly related to what you are able to do and, ultimately, who you become • In other words, learners can establish a presence in a world of meaningful learning context with perceptual and actionable immersion albeit without physical immersion (Dede, 1996; Barab et al, 2010).

13. Theoretical framework • “Person With Intentionality” • students have a purpose to play a role in a videogame, such as solving a water problem in a park • “Content With Legitimacy” • players understand that it is okay to try different ways of solving problems and it is okay to make mistakes and take risks • “Context With Consequentiality” • players understand that each decision they make, there are consequences in the context they are involved in, so they have to make decision intelligently and carefully so as to solve problems at hand successfully

15. Quest Atlantis (http://atlantisremixed.org/)

16. Implications for Instructional Design • Collaboration between researchers, instructional designers, instructors, and game designers. • Inquiry-based learning • Holistic view of learning goals and instructional design • Good teaching

17. Focus on Clear Learning Goals • Provide External Scaffolding: adaptive system with just-in-time hints • Representation. • Narrative/Fantasy: strong narrative support engagement and motivation (Honey and Hilton, 2012, p. 38; Dickie, 2007) • Feedback

18. Opportunities • For individualized learning • Assign students to teams based on their knowledge of students’ intellectual and psychological characteristics. • Instructors can use feedback from the system. • Can be adapted for students with special needs. • For Psychosocial learning and motivation • Discussion sessions that bring game activities to classrooms • Foster shared learning

19. Constraints • Very difficult to implement game-based instructional design. • Good game play • Good narrative • Alignment with curricular goals and learning activities • Resources of Implementation • Stop seeking simple answers that address the wrong question. (Young et al, 2012)

20. Selected Bibliography • Gee, J. P. (2003). What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. Palgrave Macmillan. • Latest literature reviews: • Young, et al. (2012). Our princess is in another castle : A review of trends in serious gaming. Review of Educational Research, 82(1), 61-89. • Honey, M. A. and Hilton, M. (2012). Learning Science Through Computer Games and Simulations. National Research Council. • Sasha Barab: • Barab, S. A. et al. (2009). Transformational Play as a Curricular Scaffold: Using Videogames to Support Science Education. J SciEducTechnol 18, 305-320. • Barab, S. A., Gresalfi, M. and Ingram-Goble, A. (2010). Transformational play: Using games to position person, content, and context. Educational Researcher, 39(7), 525-536. • Barab, S. A., Gresalfi, M. and Arici, A. (2009). Why educators should care about games. Educational Leadership, September 4th, 2009, 76-80. • Barab, S. A., et al. (2012). Game-based curriculum and transformational play: Designing to meaningfully positioning person, content, and context. Computers and Education, 58, 518-533. • Squire, K. and Barab, S. (2004). Replaying history: Engaging urban underserved students in learning world history through computer simulation games. 505-512. • Others: • Clark, D. (2006). Games and e-learning. Caspian Learning. • Dede, C. (1996). The evolution of constructivist learning environments: Immersion in distributed, virtual worlds. Constructivist Learning Environments: Case Studies in Instructional Design, pp. 165-175. • Dickey, M. D. (2007). Game design and learning: a conjectural analysis of how massively multiple online role-playing games (MMORPGs) foster intrinsic motivation. Education Tech Research Dev, 55, 253–273. • FutureLab. (2010). Games in education: Serious games. • Moreno-Ger, Pablo, et al. (2008). Educational game design for online education . Computers in Human Behavior, 24, 2530–2540. • Prensky, M. (2005). “Engage me or enrage me. What today’s learners demand. Educause. • Rosin, H. (2013). The touch-screen generation. The Atlantic, March 2013. retrieved: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2013/04/the-touch-screen-generation/309250/ • Van Eck, R. (2006). Digital game-based learning: It’s not just the digital natives who are restless…. Educase Review, 41(2). • Wu,W.-H., et al. (2012). Re-exploring game-assisted learning research: The perspective of learning theoretical bases. Computers and Education, 59, 1153-1161.