Education Commons^™

When Failure Is An Option: A Scoping Review Of Failure States In Game-Based Learning, F. Eamonn Powers, Robert L. Moore

STEMPS Faculty Publications

As interest in the use of games and gaming elements within learning environments grows, educators and designers may find it easier to account for winning than for losing and failure. This scoping review examines the role of failure and loss within game-based instructional interventions. Because of the varied methods and relatively small number of articles directly addressing the intersection between failure and loss within game-based instructional interventions, a scoping review was undertaken. This review included 14 peer-reviewed articles which explored a range of instructional contexts implementing failure state game mechanics. We identify several key takeaways that indicate how failure state …

Designing Analog Learning Games: Genre Affordances, Limitations And Multi-Game Approaches, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Articles

This chapter explores what the authors discovered about analog games and game design during the many iterative processes that have led to the Lost & Found series, and how they found certain constraints and affordances (that which an artifact assists, promotes or allows) provided by the boardgame genre. Some findings were counter-intuitive. What choices would allow for the modeling of complex systems, such as legal and economic systems? What choices would allow for gameplay within the time of a class-period? What mechanics could promote discussions of tradeoff decisions? If players are expending too much cognition on arithmetic strategizing, could that …

Lost & Found: New Harvest, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Presentations and other scholarship

Lost & Found is a strategy card-to-mobile game series that teaches medieval religious legal systems with attention to period accuracy and cultural and historical context.

Set in Fustat (Old Cairo) in the 12th century, a great crossroads of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. The Lost & Found games project seeks to expand the discourse around religious legal systems, to enrich public conversations in a variety of communities, and to promote greater understanding of the religious traditions that build the fabric of the United States. Comparative religious literacy can build bridges between and within communities and prepare learners to be responsible citizens …

Towards A Context Agnostic Platform For Design And Assessment Of Educational Games, Tyler Baron, Corey Heath, Ashish Amresh

Ashish Amresh

The majority of the games designed for improving, acquiring or transferring knowledge rely heavily on building game mechanics that are grounded deeply in the content or subject matter being taught. There is a growing need for educational practitioners and pedagogical experts to have the ability to easily map learning outcomes by choosing from a pallet of functioning game mechanics without having the need to redesign them from scratch. In this paper, we present the current state of the art in context agnostic design and assessment of educational games, and propose three strategies that educators can take advantage of during the …

Reflection On Assumptions From Designing Female-Centric Educational Games, Corey D.C. Heath, Tyler Baron, Kevin Gary, Ashish Amresh

Ashish Amresh

In this paper we present a detailed analysis of the design and implementation of an educational game targeting young women entrepreneurs by a predominantly male team. During the process, we arrived at assumptions based on intrinsic and extrinsic influences that effected the design of the game. After creating a prototype, the game was provided to the target audience during a usability test. Our observations reveal that even after following a rigorous and agile development model that included stakeholders at several time frames, we were not successful in delivering the desired experience to our target audience. We conclude by presenting a …

Designing Games To Motivate Student Cohorts Through Targeted Game Genre Selection, Penny De Byl, Jeffrey Brand

Penny de Byl

The objective of this chapter is to develop guidelines for targeted use of games in educational settings by presenting a typology of learning styles, motivations, game genres, and learning outcomes within disciplinary student cohorts. By identifying which academic outcomes best align with the motivations and learning styles of students and which game genres are best suited to those motivations and outcomes, the authors elucidate a typology to assist serious game designers’ and educators’ pursuits of games that both engage and instruct. The result will guide the implementation of games in the classroom by linking game genre and game mechanics with …

Designing Games To Motivate Student Cohorts Through Targeted Game Genre Selection, Penny De Byl, Jeffrey Brand

Jeffrey Brand

The objective of this chapter is to develop guidelines for targeted use of games in educational settings by presenting a typology of learning styles, motivations, game genres, and learning outcomes within disciplinary student cohorts. By identifying which academic outcomes best align with the motivations and learning styles of students and which game genres are best suited to those motivations and outcomes, the authors elucidate a typology to assist serious game designers’ and educators’ pursuits of games that both engage and instruct. The result will guide the implementation of games in the classroom by linking game genre and game mechanics with …