DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-1461-0.ch006
ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the use of game-based teaching in teacher education courses. It compares a ver- sion of a course taught in a traditional manner to the game-based version. It then traces the evolution of the author’s use of game-based teaching and details ways the author overcame various obstacles in subsequent courses. In doing so, it discusses the affordances and constraints of learning management systems and concludes that small changes in learning management systems would greatly improve the ability to use them to create curricular games.
INTRODUCTION
When I was a high school English teacher, I played games in my classroom with my students. We played competitive games where teams of students had to race to put items, such as the different parts of an MLA (Modern Language Association) citation, in the proper order; we played last person standing games where we stood in a circle, tossed a ball, and when you got the ball you had to give an example of the designated part of speech that started with the last letter of the previous word; we played process of elimination games like Jotto where students had to figure out the target word by guessing other words and the person who knew the target word would say how many letters were the same in both words. For the most part, students loved the games and the games helped reinforce their learning.
Designing Curricular Games in Teacher Education:
Exploring an Evolution of Game-Based Teaching
Janna Jackson Kellinger
University of Massachusetts, Boston, USA
Designing Curricular Games in Teacher Education
However, one of the first games I played was such a disaster I almost quit teaching right then and there. I was a student teacher and decided to play Jeopardy the trivia game with my students. I drew the grid on the chalkboard with the categories and the varying amounts of points for each category, erased each amount after it was used, and used the chalkboard to keep track of each group’s score. This meant my back was turned to the students quite a bit. I instructed the groups to “slap in” when they knew the answer. Because it was so hard to tell which group “slapped in” first, chaos ensued when a group felt like they had slapped in first, but I had called on another group. In addition, little did I know that while my back was turned, students were wadding up pieces of paper and throwing them out the window.
Directly below the classroom was the vice principal’s office. He came storming upstairs and chastised me after seeing “snowballs” outside his window. I vowed that if I remained in teaching, I would never play Jeopardy with my students again. I later decided to try it again, but this time with strict rules. After that, when we played Jeopardy in class, groups went in order, each group had a spokesperson who had one minute to answer, if they got it wrong, the next group would have a chance to go and if all groups had a chance to attempt the same question without succeeding, then that original group got to choose the category and amount for the next question. With these rules in place, playing Jeopardy went much more smoothly. This was my first lesson in designing curricular games—the importance of rules. In fact, you could argue, it is the rules that make the game. As McGonigal (2011) points out, the goal of golf is to put a ball into a hole. Without the rule that you have to hit that ball with a club from far away, players could just walk up to the hole and drop the ball in, but clearly there would be no fun in that.
While the term “games” encompasses a wide range of activities and whose definition has fuzzy boundaries, the focus of my work has been on curricular games which I describe as unit-long or semester long “problem space[s] where players can try out different solutions [to achieve a goal] without suffer- ing real-world consequences” (Kellinger, 2017, p. 30). As I explain further, “Those one-shot games are fun and can be motivating (at least sufficiently motivating to get students to learn enough facts to win the game), but tend to be recall games, not games that promote deeper understanding, critical thinking, problem-solving, or innovation” (Kellinger, 2017, p. 29). While I dabbled in those “one-shot” games as a high school English teacher, I did not advance in my development of designing true curricular games as I define them until I entered the world of teaching in higher education. This chapter explores my evolution in thinking, explains some of the nuts and bolts of designing curricular games, discusses how to troubleshoot common problems, and recommends changes that could easily be made to Learning Management Systems (LMSs) to convert them into curricular game authoring platforms.
While an LMS will not enable a lone instructor to create a video game like Grand Theft Auto, it is important to remember that students likely will not compare curricular games to commercial video games, what Squire (2011) calls the “ceiling”, but rather to the “curriculum” part of “curricular games”, in other words, the type of instruction that they are used to, what Squire (2011) calls “the floor”. My hope is in writing this chapter that readers will also see game-based teaching as a doable endeavor by decreasing the intimidation factor. By exploring my own mistakes, I hope to convey the iterative nature of designing curricular games as each time you teach it, you are also playtesting it with an eye towards ongoing improvement.
111 Designing Curricular Games in Teacher Education
BACKGROUND
Much of the focus of scholarship on game-based teaching has been focused on the K-12 grades (Shafer, 2006; Squire, 2011; Prensky, 2006). In fact, one of the earliest works was about fourth graders designing games for younger kids to play to learn math (Kafai, 1995). Some have explored game-based teaching in business trainings while touching on higher education (Kapp, 2012), although largely with a focus on simulations, which I would argue are related to but not the same as game-based teaching. Reacting to the Past, semester-long role-playing games where students play historical figures, bridges that gap between simulations and games and, according to Denby (2000) has students “engaged all the time” (p.
1). Some researchers have explored using Commercial off the Shelf (COTS) games in higher education classrooms, such as Whitton (2010), with fewer exploring the nuts and bolts of creating and employing curricular games in higher education, such as Sheldon’s (2011) Multi-player Classroom, and even fewer in the context of online learning, such as Akilli (2007) and Aldrich (2009). In many higher education institutions, instructional designers assist instructors in designing online courses. Although researchers have investigated the use of video game principles in instructional design, such as Dickey (2005 & 2011) and von Gillern & Alaswad (2016), in my experience, instructional designers have largely focused on clear and efficient ways for instructors to deliver curriculum online, not ways to get students to experi- ence the curriculum.
EVOLUTION OF MY GAME-BASED TEACHING Traditional Teaching
While I was still in graduate school, I taught an educational technology class that was a complete failure.
I stood at the front of the computer lab and modeled for students what they were supposed to do and then expected them to do it. I was employing the gradual release of responsibility, or “I do, We do, You do”, teaching model (Maynes, Julien-Schultz, & Dunn, 2010) but students had no context, no motiva- tion, and no meaning attached to the “you do” part. In other words, the course lacked the essential ele- ments Malone and Lepper (1987) outline in answering the question “What makes things fun to learn?”, namely challenge, fantasy, curiosity, and control. My course evaluation scores and comments reflected the disconnect between the material, the instructor, and the students. Particularly harsh was one stu- dent’s course evaluation comment: “I found the class to be very long and boring and left with very little knowledge other than the fact that if you use AIM Chat on a different computer, it changes your buddy icon” (Jackson, 2009, p. 295). Although I vowed not to teach that class again, just as I recanted on my Jeopardy vow, I agreed to teach a similar class when I got a job as an assistant professor.
Game-Based Teaching 1.0
Knowing that my pedagogy failed the first time, I decided to try something new. When I taught high school, I had used some one-shot games in my teaching, as described above, but I always felt like some- thing was missing. I realized that, while those one-shot games were fun, they simply tested students on previously acquired knowledge instead of engaging students in deeper learning. Meanwhile, I was drawn to immersive adventure video games like the Myst series but never was able to find the time to get into
Designing Curricular Games in Teacher Education
serious gaming. Drawing from my admittedly limited experiences playing video games, I decided to design the class like a video game with a game story (supplying fantasy), levels (providing challenge), activities and assignments with some surprise events that unlocked more of the game story (inspiring curiosity), and a choice of different paths (giving students control). I thought I was being innovative. Little did I realize that others had already been designing curricular games such as Barnard University’s Reacting to the Past semester-long games referred to above and New York’s Quest to Learn school whose whole curricula is game-based (Salen, et al., 2011). In addition, others had done extensive research on using games to teach (Gibson, Aldrich & Prensky, 2007; Van Eck, 2010) which showed that games motivate and engage students in ways that traditional teaching does not. I, however, embarked on this notion of game-based teaching on my own, based on my gut instinct that if video games can teach skills necessary for success in the game world, designing a class using the principles behind video games should be able to teach students skills in the academic world.
In order to convert that initial course into a game, I developed a game story where the student is the
“you” in the story. As the protagonist in the game story, each student had to complete different tasks which are really the assignments embedded into the game story. This way, instead of pushing content onto students without any context like I had done previously, I provided support for students to draw meaning from the content and immediately apply it within the context of the game story, in other words, the motivation and desire to pull the content for their own use.
I also had students in different groups based on their self-assessment of their own technological skills which then determined which version of each assignment they saw. That way students could do assignments which were reflective of their technology skills by assigning them based on each student’s challenge zone, i.e. just beyond their current capabilities (Vygotsky, 1978). In this way, I could differen- tiate student learning in a class with students who came to the class with vastly different technological skills. Student comments on course evaluations suggests this differentiation worked as they remarked on how the class began where they were in terms of technology skills and moved them beyond what they thought possible (Jackson, 2009):
• [The professor] truly meets her students where they are and allows them to grow from there.
This is so important in this class because everyone seemed to have different backgrounds with technology.
• Thanks so much… I learned a ton in your class! I’m clearly not a computer guru, but I feel much more comfortable than I ever have, and that’s what it’s all about, right? You really forced me to get out of my comfort zone. Thanks again!
• Thank you for helping me face my technological fears.
• As hard as I have struggled through certain parts of your class, I feel that I have learned more from you than I have in many other classes and appreciate why [another professor] recommended you to me both for my own lack of technological experience and for the quality of techniques that you incorporate in your own classes. I have learned as much about teaching as I have about technology in your class, and I plan to incorporate and utilize as many aspects of your teaching as I can in the upcoming year. (Jackson, 2009, p. 301)
These comments were an indication that I was onto something, however, there were still some prob- lematic aspects of this first iteration of this course.
113 Designing Curricular Games in Teacher Education
The primary pedagogical basis of this game-based class was mastery-based learning (Bloom, 1980).
In other words, students could not move on, or “unlock”, the next segment of the game story and the as- signments embedded within, until they demonstrated mastery of a previous assignment. Because moving forward in the course was dependent upon achieving a minimum cut score on an assignment, students had to be able to revise and resubmit assignments. In fact, I found this to be the largest driver in student learning as I could teach through feedback on assignments and students would have a chance to use that feedback to make improvements instead of what happens far too often to instructor feedback where the student focuses on the letter grade and only glances at the written feedback. This made instructor feed- back much more meaningful to the instructor and to the student. This “revise and resubmit” policy has been by far the most favorable part of my game-based teaching courses. As one student put it, “Having played my share of videogames in my life, many of which were role-playing games, I liked being able to solve problems multiple times” (Kellinger, 2017, p. 30). This also made student success more likely as I could be reasonably sure that students had the skills they needed for the final, or “boss”, assignment.
While this first version was a vast improvement upon my initial attempt to teach an educational tech- nology class, I still ran into some problems. The most glaring one was having only one deadline: the end of the semester. My students are graduate students and lead busy lives. Having only one deadline resulted in massive procrastination. This was compounded by the mastery learning approach (Bloom, 1980) to my game design so that students had to complete one assignment before unlocking the next. While the
“revise and resubmit” aspect of assignments was by far the most popular feature and my course evalu- ation scores did greatly improve (Jackson, 2009), when the students who waited until the last minute could not access the next item until I graded and they passed it, frustration grew.
Thinking back to the eighties and the heyday of video game arcades when people would actually unplug a video game in an arcade to wipe out high scores so then they could, if only briefly, be the one with the high score, I instituted a rudimentary leaderboard listing the top students with the most points in the hopes of inspiring competition among students to both try to do better on individual assignments and to progress faster through the course. However, I quickly abandoned this aspect as I found that it only inspired competition among the top two or three students and that the other students quickly got discouraged. I did continue to periodically send messages to the top scorer to let them know they had the top score but quickly abandoned this as well as it felt artificial and went against several of the goals of my class such as learning for learning sake and not for an artificial point system as well as students being able to work at their own pace, particularly because graduate students are often in that “sandwich”
generation where they are taking care of aging parents and little ones at the same time. Because I kept the focus on student learning, I was able to achieve this balance between using scoring to help students improve without engendering a sole focus on doing whatever it takes to earn more points, as illustrated in these student quotes below:
• “Though I found many of the pre-planning projects frustrating at first, I feel that I learned a lot from struggling through them and felt driven to submit multiple attempts in order to improve my score, something I have done while playing video games.”
• “Love, love, loved the structure of this class. I never felt any pressure, as I do with other classes, so I was able to put more thought behind my submissions.” (Kellinger, 2017, p. 30)
I found that trying to create competition within a class was counterproductive while fostering com- petition within oneself was productive.
Designing Curricular Games in Teacher Education
Game-Based Teaching 2.0
In the next rehaul of this class, I abandoned the serial approach where each assignment had to be com- pleted at a certain level of mastery before the next one was unlocked, and instead I took a “river and lakes” (also called a “string of pearls”) approach by having multiple assignments per level and having the Learning Management System (LMS) keep a running total of points with students having to reach a certain cut score in their cumulative total before “leveling up”. This allowed students to work on multiple assignments within a level and alleviated some of the frustration around wait times as they could work on another assignment while waiting for me to grade another one. It also gave students more choice since they could choose the order in which they did assignments within a level.
Meanwhile, I started to realize that all courses could lend themselves to a game-based format, not just the educational technology course. As I gradually started to convert my other courses to a game- based format, I realized that in my initial attempt at game-based teaching in the educational technology course, I made the course overly complicated. Thus, one of my goals was to simplify the game without taking away the learning or the fun.
While both traditional and game-based versions of this next class, which focused on designing cur- riculum and instruction, garnered roughly the same averages in terms of course evaluation ratings, the differences in how students perceived the two versions was revealed in the qualitative comments. Students who took the traditional version of the class remarked on how the class increased their knowledge and understanding of the topic whereas students who take the game-based versions remark on the practical applications the class affords. The main reason behind this is also evident from the qualitative com- ments. In the traditional versions, many students remarked on how I as the instructor modeled a variety of teaching styles. In the game-based versions, students talked about how the course mirrored real-life.
For example, one student talked about how uncanny it was that the course reflected her own thoughts and feelings from her first year of teaching. By embedding both the content and the assignments into the game story, the course allowed students to experience the curriculum, instead of just observing it.
In the educational technology class that I initially converted into a curricular game, the game story served as a frame for the content, which was delivered through PowerPoints, readings, videos, and as- signments. In this designing curriculum and instruction course, the game story is the content, which is then supported by PowerPoints and readings. In other words, students learn the bulk of the material from reading the game story. The readings and PowerPoints serve as supporting materials and the assignments in the class are tasks that the protagonist has to do in the game story. The game story IS the textbook written in second person as a series of experiences from which the protagonist learns. Feedback from students about this course being similar to their very own teaching experiences tells me that combining content with context is a useful way to prepare students for careers as teachers.
By having the game story be the content, not only can the course cover a large number of readings by having the non-playing characters (NPCs) summarize them, the NPCs themselves can represent different viewpoints. In the case of this curriculum class, the NPCs who are the veteran teachers each represent a different curricular ideology. By doing this, not only can these different ideologies be presented in a way that masks the instructor’s own ideology, through discussions among the NPCs, the commonali- ties, nuances, differences, and contradictions among the ideologies can be explored. In fact, a recurring question the protagonist has is how teachers with such different ideologies can respect each other as professionals. Along the way, the protagonist is given a questionnaire that helps them determine their own ideological viewpoint and faces a series of decisions that clarifies their viewpoint. At one point in