Educational games and apps are a useful tool for Blended Learning, making it important to choose games in different content areas that not only align with standards and support learning goals, but engage students as well. In this session, Max Holechek, UX Designer, Ayu Othman, Art Director and Dr. Tim Hudson, explored games from a developers eyes. They discussed how game design principles can be used effectively to increase student engagement and achievement, both in the classroom and in digital environments. They shared examples of games that employ these principles in different content areas and in games that are solely developed for entertainment. They also explained how to classify and select educational games according to their purposes and needs.
ENGLISH 7_Q4_LESSON 2_ Employing a Variety of Strategies for Effective Interp...
Games for Learning – Design Principles for Student Engagement in Blended Learning Models
1. Games for Learning
Design Principles for Student Engagement
in Blended Learning Models
Max Holecheck Ayu Othman
UX Designer Art Director
Dr. Tim Hudson
Senior Director of Curriculum Design
5. Max Holechek
Creative Director
Nancy Drew PC game series
• Changed conventional misconceptions about
female gamer habits
• Pioneering “casual” game design years before
the term was coined.
Producer & Design Consultant
• THQ
• Nick Jr.
• Cranium
• Codemasteres
• Oberon Media
• PopCap Games
• PlayFirst
• Her Interactive
Lead Game Designer
• Turbo Subs
• Turbo Fiesta
• Go-Go- Gourmet,
• Go-Go- Gourmet: Chef of the Year
Ayu Othman
2D & Texture Artist
Nancy Drew PC game series
• Created 2D maps, hotspot graphics, and
puzzles integrated 3D environments.
• Game series won several awards, including
Parent’s Choice Gold.
Art Director, Nancy Drew
Dossier Series & Cody Capers
• Oversaw visual direction for casual games
at Her Interactive
• Dossier series was runner up to Plants v.
Zombies for best casual game 2009
Art Director
PassionFruit Games
• Tiger Eye: Curse of the Riddle Box
6. Games for Learning – Design Principles
How can I make learning seem
more like a game?
(Not the right question, unless you
understand what you’re asking.)
10. FLOW
An idea of heightened focus and
immersion in an activity.
11. Gratuitous example of myself in ‘flow’--
Ecstasy, clarity, receiving immediate feedback,
forgetting myself, doing it for its own sake.
FLOW: An idea of heightened focus and
immersion in an activity.
12. FLOW is that sweet spot we experience during an activity, in which
the challenge level being presented is properly balanced with our
skill level.
During ‘flow’ we experience being ‘in the zone’ and lose all track of
time during that activity.
Graph source: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/166972/cognitive_flow_the_psychology_of_.php
Not too easy (snore)
Not too hard (eep!)
Just right!
13. Mihály Csíkszentmihályi,
professor and former chairman
of the Dept. of Psychology at
the University of Chicago
created Flow theory as part of
his life work towards
understanding what is it that
makes humans truly happy,
satisfied and fulfilled.
Sources:
http://www.jenovachen.com/flowingames/researches.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi.j
pg
aka the genius behind Flow
theory
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi
14. Elements of Flow
• A challenge activity that requires skills
• The merging of action and awareness
• Clear goals
• Direct feedback
• Concentration on the task at hand
• The sense of control
• The loss of self-consciousness
• The transformation of time
Source: http://www.jenovachen.com/flowingames/foundation.htm
Great teachers and coaches already utilize
elements of Flow theory in engaging their
students.
15. What is a game?
A system in which players engage in an artificial
conflict, defined by rules, that results in a
quantifiable outcome.
Source: •Salen, K. and E. Zimmerman. Rules of Play : Game Design Fundamentals. The MIT Press. (2003)
16. What is a good game?
A carefully designed system that invokes flow in
players as they engage in an artificial conflict,
defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable
outcome.
Source: •Salen, K. and E. Zimmerman. Rules of Play : Game Design Fundamentals. The MIT Press. (2003)
..and Ayu & Max
17. Relevance to the player and game’s goals
Understanding upon a glance
Get out of the player’s way
Learning through safe exploration
Use rewards for perseverance and replay-ability
Good Casual Game Design Principles
18. Relevance to the player and game’s goals
• Contextualize your game
Good Casual Game Design Principles
22. Relevance to the player and game’s goals
• Contextualize your game
• Don’t Assume your Assumptions are Valid
• The player only gets 3 lives, right?
• Being penalized & vanquished is just part of learning/playing a game!
Good Casual Game Design Principles
24. Relevance to the player and game’s goals
• Contextualize your game
• Don’t Assume your Assumptions are Valid
• The player only gets 3 lives, right?
• Being penalized & vanquished is just part of learning/playing a game!
• Classroom application: Plan Backward from Learning Goals
Good Casual Game Design Principles
26. Key Questions
1. What do you want
students to accomplish?
2. How will you know
they’ve achieved it?
3. What games can help
students meet these goals?
33. Better Goals for Students
David Bressoud, Mathematical Association of
America (www.maa.org/columns)
• “The existence of Wolfram|Alpha [and calculators]
does push instructors to be more honest about
their use of standard problems executed by
memorizing algorithmic procedures.
• “If a student feels that she or he has learned
nothing that cannot be pulled directly from
Wolfram|Alpha, then the course really has been
a waste of time.”
35. Classifying Learning Games
No Prior Instruction
Needed
• Learning Experiences
• Usually Conceptual
• Simulation, Situation
• Critical Thinking Focus
• Mostly Self-Directed
• Realization Focus
• Content Specific
• Learning Context &
Content first, THEN game
is added afterward
Prior Instruction
Required
• Practice
• Often Rote
• “Flash Card” Design
• Often Memory Focus
• Mostly Teacher-Directed
• Recall Focus
• Possibly Interchangeable
Content
• Game Design comes first,
THEN content is added
afterward
36. Good Casual Game Design Principles
Understanding Upon a Glance
• Players can learn to play the game within 15 seconds
• Layout, simplicity of elements, and highlight use instruct visually.
• If your game looks like an XL spreadsheet, start over.
• Simple, minimal, elegant rule sets. If the game incorporates more or more
complex rules, stagger them in slowly and in later levels. (Flow!)
39. Good Casual Game Design Principles
Understanding Upon a Glance
• Minimal, transparent, very intuitive player input
• PC: Avoid/limit keyboard or right button input
• Touch screen: Limit number of gestures
• Never change already introduced UI behavior
• Gradually introduce new features and rules
• Build upon existing learning and create combination behaviors
42. Good Casual Game Design Principles
Get out of the player’s way
• Keep reading to minimum
• Use simple, elegant visuals/animations to convey instructions, if you can.
• If text must be used, then keep it concise and in simple language.
44. Good Casual Game Design Principles
Get out of the player’s way
• Keep reading to minimum
• Use simple, elegant visuals/animations to convey instructions, if you can.
• If text must be used, then keep it concise and in simple language.
• No lengthy story exposition - Nobody cares about your writing skill
• No long, front-loaded tutorials
• Classroom application: Front-Loading Explanation is Disengaging
46. In the Classroom: Quick Task Entry
• If your classroom learning tasks require more
than 1 minute of directions, there is probably too
high of a barrier to engagement.
• Try redesigning the task to create a simpler
entry point.
• It may require more class time to complete the
task, but it results in more engagement, better
thinking, and better learning.
48. Let Me
Show You
How To Do
X
Now You
Go Do
X
Can You
Independently
Do
X?
Maybe You
Need to Be
Shown X
Again
You Know
X
Schooling as Content Delivery
49. Let Me
Show You
How To Do
X
Now You
Go Do
X
Can You
Independently
Do
X?
Maybe You
Need to Be
Shown X
Again
You Know
X
Content Delivery cannot
‘give understandings’
51. Pros & Cons
Benefit of Blended
Learning
Becoming MORE thoughtful
and strategic about the use
of precious class time
Danger of Blended
Learning
Becoming LESS thoughtful
and strategic about how
students learn and make
sense of things
54. Casual Game Design Principles
3. Learning through safe exploration
• Player should feel safe exploring, always.
• The player always makes informed decisions, because everything to
be known can be seen
• Nothing is going on off-screen or behind the scene that can hinder the
player’s progress.
56. Casual Game Design Principles
3. Learning through safe exploration
• Use trial and error/failure as a tool to lead to “aha” moment for the
player.
• If the player loses or performs below their expectations, make it
absolutely clear why that happened and how they can do better.
58. Casual Game Design Principles
3. Learning through safe exploration
• Use trial and error/failure as a tool to lead to “aha” moment for the
player.
• If the player loses or performs below their expectations, make it
absolutely clear why that happened and how they can do better.
• Classroom application: Engage in Exploration First
60. Don’t Start by Telling
“Providing students with opportunities
to first grapple with specific information
relevant to a topic has been shown to
create a ‘time for telling’ that enables
them to learn much more from an
organizing lecture.”
• How People Learn, p. 58
63. For Additional Game Ideas
Common Sense Media
• commonsensemedia.org
• 2013 ON for Learning Award Winners
• 50 Apps, games, and websites that received highest
ratings for learning potential
63
64. Casual Game Design Principles
4. Use Rewards for Engagement and Replay Motivation
• Early and frequent in-game rewards
• Maximize replay value
• Level pass, versus 1-3 stars
• Dangle the carrot to “try again”
66. Casual Game Design Principles
4. Use Rewards for Engagement and Replay Motivation
• Early and frequent in-game rewards
• Maximize replay value
• Level pass, versus 1-3 stars
• Dangle the carrot to “try again”
• Classroom application: Re-Think Assessment & Grading Practices
70. Problems with Grading Practices
• Assessing Behavior Rather than Learning
• Score of “Zero” indicates only that a student
didn’t complete an assignment
• Percentages distill learning into a meaningless
number
• Students engage in “point grubbing”
• Students can often earn enough points to “pass,”
but might not have learned much
71. Casual Game Design Principles
4. Use Rewards for Engagement and Replay Motivation
• Early and frequent in-game rewards
• Maximize replay value
• Level pass, versus 1-3 stars
• Dangle the carrot to “try again”
• Classroom application: Re-Think Assessment & Grading Practices
• Use meta game rewards
• Use point, commerce or completion system to earn upgrades and features
• Badges/Trophies/Achievements
• Power-ups/Enhanced or Odds-reduced gameplay
• Earn rare items for game or décor
74. • The game itself is intrinsically rewarding.
o Extrinsic motivators are certainly nice but good game
design and content still rules!
Testing for flow in game design:
Gamification certainly has its merits but
can also be over-used to mask poorly-
designed games or interactive content.
75. • The player is up to play the game.
o This seems like a no-brainer but as per the often
overused proverb about that reluctant horse.
Testing for flow in game design:
76. • The game offers the right amount of challenges that
match with the player’s ability and allows her/him to
delve deeply into the experience.
Testing for flow in game design:
77. • The player feels a sense of personal control over the
game activity.
Testing for flow in game design:
Candyland and Cootie are examples of nostalgic, pervasive, and terrible games. Gamification has been used (and overused) in digital products, but often with equally boring results. The same has plagued most educational toys and games for years. Why? Because the focus should not be on the game. Where should the focus be?
Candyland and Cootie are examples of nostalgic, pervasive, and terrible games. Gamification has been used (and overused) in digital products, but often with equally boring results. The same has plagued most educational toys and games for years. Why? Because the focus should not be on the game. Where should the focus be?
On fun, of course.
Full quote:"PLAYING SHOULD BE FUN! In our great eagerness to teach our children we studiously look for "educational" toys, games with built-in lessons, books with a "message." Often these "tools" are less interesting and stimulating than the child's natural curiosity and playfulness. Play is by its very nature educational. And it should be pleasurable. When the fun goes out of play, most often so does the learning.“ - Joanne E. Oppenheim (Kids and Play, ch. 1, 1984)”
Max has historically described “fun” as a word we use to describe our “complete engagement.” Ayu is here to present a term and theory to describe both…
Wikipedia: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pron.: /ˈmiːhaɪ ˌtʃiːksɛntməˈhaɪ.iː/ mee-hy cheek-sent-mə-hy-ee; Hungarian: Csíkszentmihályi Mihály [ˈtʃiːksɛntmihaːji ˈmihaːj]; born September 29, 1934, in Fiume, Italy – now Rijeka, Croatia) is aHungarian psychology professor, who emigrated to the United States at the age of 22. Now at Claremont Graduate University, he is the former head of the department of psychology at the University of Chicago and of the department of sociology and anthropology at Lake Forest College.
Now that we understand flow, let’s loop back to the topic of games. What is a game?
Add flow to that system, and you’ve got yourself a GOOD game.
Note: Casual games are the kind you most often play on your smart phone; simple, engrossing experiences designed so they can be picked up and put down after a few minutes of play. Opposed to complex, hardcore console games that potentially require a lifestyle change in order to complete. There are more good game design principles than can be described within our timeframe, but here are a few.
Rock Paper Scissors give context to meaningless, unrelated hand gestures.
Yawn.
Forest foraging! Movie-style archeology! Gather gems to create wormholes through the space/time continuum!
3 Lives were invented in the pursuit of shaking kids down for their quarters. Also, being penalized & vanquished is not a default part of learning/playing a game. Task the average person to make a game and they’ll have rules like: “If you land on this space, you lose everything you’ve collected, you go back to Start, and you have to hold five bees in your mouth until you roll a 6.”
These are the 3 planning stages the Steering Committee has used to develop the Strategic Plan. First, we used our Mission, Vision, and Commitments to frame our goals. Next, we established the indicators of success for judging progress. The third stage gets into the specifics of a plan, outlining actions that need to happen to accomplish the goal.
Lastly, we get to the generalized distributive property lesson – a 6th grade Common Core Standard that actually is a challenge for many Algebra 1 students. We bring in variables and students realize that “FOIL-ing” – which we never call it in the product for a number of good reasons – is nothing more than the partial products they’ve been doing since 3rd grade – it’s the same as the multiplication algorithm, too. It’s a natural progression with connections to much of their prior knowledge. When you think of middle and high school teachers showing students how to FOIL – and maybe wondering why kids struggle with it – we should think about all of these many lessons, models, and very strategic lessons that have been built into DreamBox for students to work with over the course of 4 years. When we talk about gaps in student understanding or holes in prior knowledge, we oversimplify the complexity of what’s lost by thinking “skill gaps” are easily remedied. Students need to access great models and manipulatives over the course of many years as they develop into mathematicians.
Meta game rewards have been proven to be successful and rewarding with players within video games. Meta game rewards integrated onto media that are not games (such as websites) has been dubbed “gamification.” It’s prevalence has led to some misguided industry generalities that anything can be come a game if Meta game rewards are added to it.
Meta game rewards have been proven to be successful and rewarding with players within video games. Meta game rewards integrated onto media that are not games (such as websites) has been dubbed “gamification.” It’s prevalence has led to some misguided industry generalities that anything can be come a game if Meta game rewards are added to it.
Meta game rewards have been proven to be successful and rewarding with players within video games. Meta game rewards integrated onto media that are not games (such as websites) has been dubbed “gamification.” It’s prevalence has led to some misguided industry generalities that anything can be come a game if Meta game rewards are added to it.
Meta game rewards have been proven to be successful and rewarding with players within video games. Meta game rewards integrated onto media that are not games (such as websites) has been dubbed “gamification.” It’s prevalence has led to some misguided industry generalities that anything can be come a game if Meta game rewards are added to it.
Meta game rewards have been proven to be successful and rewarding with players within video games. Meta game rewards integrated onto media that are not games (such as websites) has been dubbed “gamification.” It’s prevalence has led to some misguided industry generalities that anything can be come a game if Meta game rewards are added to it.
Good game design also incorporates Flow methodology, whether on purpose or unconsciously.
DreamBox Learning’s intelligent adaptive learning program accelerates student learning.
DreamBox combines a rigorous mathematics curriculum, motivating learning environments and an intelligent adaptive learning™ engine which has the power to deliver millions of individualized learning paths- each one tailored to a student’s unique needs.
The result is a program that supports teachers in differentiating instruction for each student in the class, and truly personalized instruction for every student, from struggling to advanced, enabling each child to excel in mathematics.
And DreamBox supports teachers and administrators with real time reporting on student progress and proficiency.