Education Commons^™

The Math Games Seminar: A Mathematical Learning Community, Anthony Delegge, Ellen Ziliak

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Learning communities can be an effective means of engaging university students across disciplines. Games have always been a source of both enjoyment and interesting mathematics. Based on our own interest in games, and the deep, strategic discussions we found ourselves having with students when we played games with them, we decided to design a learning community around the mathematics of games. We hoped in particular that such a community could be a great pathway to introducing mathematical thinking to students not majoring in mathematics, and that they would gain a greater appreciation for our field. In this paper, we describe …

Creative Geometry Games, Hui Fang Huang Su, Dylan Mandolini, Bhagi Phuel

Transformations

The geometry game presented in this article was inspired by Bright and Harvey's (1988) Learning and fun with geometry games. In their article, Bright and Harvey (1988) propose three interactive games: Polyhedron Rummy, Polygon Rummy and That are Stretching it. Polygon Rummy is a game pertaining to plane geometry where the instructional objective is to construct a figure using lines and angles, whereas the goal of polyhedron rummy is to construct a solid using faces and angles. Although Bright and Harvey focused on constructing shapes, they also suggested presenting pre-constructed shapes to students, allowing them to classify and identify them …

Use Of Multimedia Games For Biology Vocabulary Instruction, Ian Murray

Doctoral Dissertations

Vocabulary knowledge is considered fundamental to learning. However, students typically find learning scientific vocabulary quite difficult, and that is especially true for biology vocabulary. Games are well established as effective tools for vocabulary instruction. Multimedia instruction is likewise recognized as aiding vocabulary learning. To date, however, there seems have been little examination of the use of multimedia games in biology vocabulary instruction. This study, therefore, compared the effectiveness of digital multimedia games and traditional instruction in teaching biology vocabulary.

A two-group, quasi-experimental study was carried out over the course of 61 days. Participants were a convenience sample of 10 high …

The Birds Of A Feather Research Challenge, Todd W. Neller

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Neller presented a set of research challenges for undergraduates that allow an excellent formative experience of research, writing, peer review, and potential presentation and publication through a top-tier conference. The focus problem is the analysis of a newly-designed solitaire card game, Birds of a Feather, so potentials for discovery abound. Open access talk slides, research code, solvability data sets, research tutorial videos, and more are also available at http://cs.gettysburg.edu/~tneller/puzzles/boaf .

Maths Games: A Universal Design Approach To Mathematical Reasoning, Kelley E. Buchheister, Christa Jackson, Cynthia E. Taylor

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

By incorporating math games into the classroom, through the principles of Universal Design teachers are able to address mathematical content, reasoning and problem solving, as well as tailoring games to address students' individual needs.

Mat-Rix-Toe: Improving Writing Through A Game-Based Project In Linear Algebra, Adam Graham-Squire, Elin Farnell, Julianna Stockton

Elin R Farnell

The Mat-Rix-Toe project utilizes a matrix-based game to deepen students’ understanding of linear algebra concepts and strengthen students’ ability to express themselves mathematically. The project was administered in three classes using slightly different approaches, each of which included some editing component to encourage the improvement of the students’ mathematical thinking and writing. Differences in the implementation of the project illustrate the benefits and drawbacks of various methods of editing in the mathematics classroom and highlight recommendations for improvements in future implementations of the project.

Gaming Your Mathematics Course: The Theory And Practice Of Games For Learning, Kathleen H. Offenholley

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Learning through play is fundamental to humans and to many other animals. Game Based Learning is an interactive pedagogy that has as its foundation the tenet that games, by their very nature, increase learning through positive emotional experience. This article introduces readers to what games in mathematics classes have the potential to do, including to decrease anxiety, increase motivation, and deepen learning through immersive gaming. The article then connects this theory to practice, providing examples of both computer and non-computer games in introductory middle school, high school and college mathematics. The article analyses how these games work, and makes the …

An Exploratory Overview Of Teaching Computer Game Development, Mario Guimaraes, Meg C. Murray

Faculty and Research Publications

The computer game industry has exploded reaching sales of several billion dollars a year and, consequently, a majority of college students are familiar with the gaming environment. In fact, videogame development has been cited as one way to motivate students to explore the world of Computer Science. However, most videogames are extremely complex computer programs created by a team of developers including programmers and graphic artists and represent thousands of hours of work. Fortunately there are software tools available that provide a way for simple computer games to be created fairly easily using a building block approach. This paper discusses …