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Tuesday 17th July 2007 11:35 am
Betty Hayes: Assessment and Curricular Models in GameStar Mechanic
Betty Hayes discusses the work of the GameStar Mechanic team in demonstrating the value of game design for learning, particularly the project’s strengths in developing language and literacy skills.
My role is largely devoted to the testing and assessment aspects of the GameStar Mechanic Project, as well as to developing a curriculum model that can be used by educators in schools and after school settings. A challenge we face is designing assessment and curriculum strategies that remain true to the goal of GameStar Mechanic, to support players in learning to speak, act, and think like game designers, and at the same time are relevant and convincing to educators. We are well aware that the belief articulated by Jim in his first post, that game design reflects a core way of thinking about and interacting with the world, is likely to be novel and even controversial. Game design, if given only a cursory appraisal, does not fit well with traditionally defined educational goals and standards. As Katie pointed out, the educational value of prior game-making software has been primarily cast in terms of teaching programming, not game design. Conforming to the existing values and objectives of schooling is not our goal, and in fact, we hope our work with GameStar Mechanic can inform the larger project of transforming how our society conceives of learning and schooling in general. In the meantime, however, we do want to convince educators, parents, and the wider community that game design is a productive activity for their children. Accordingly, we are not only attempting to document what and how players are learning about game design through GameStar Mechanic, but also to demonstrate the value of this learning, both in itself and as “preparation for future learning” (Schwartz & Bransford, 1998) in other domains.
Language and Literacy
One of the initial focal points for our assessment work has been language and literacy learning, a domain perhaps most easily appreciated and aligned with typical academic goals. A lot of reading and writing is built into the GameStar Mechanic experience; players read and write game reviews, game labels, and blogs about their game making activities. In addition, there is a lot of talk in the face-to-face group activities we’ve utilized, when kids design games collaboratively, discuss criteria for evaluating games, explain how they designed their games, and give advice or feedback to each other. These language-based activities are quite motivating and meaningful to most kids we’ve worked with, because they have a purpose and an audience. Many of these kids are not avid readers or writers, and they are doing far more extended writing or focused discussion than they do in school. Beyond documenting an increase in written and oral language use, or improvement in basic communication of ideas or grammar, we are trying to identify players’ increasing use of ‘specialist language.’ Specialist language consists of the specific terminology, genres, and forms of argumentation that are associated with particular academic disciplines and professions. By middle school, the acquisition of specialist language becomes essential for success; students need to learn the language of science, of history, of mathematics, and so forth. GameStar Mechanic immerses players in the specialist language of game design; for example players must acquire a new vocabulary (GameStar Mechanic has an online gamepedia that defines terms ranging from rules to iterative design to decision trees), and ways of using this language for specific purposes, such as what to include in a game label or design document. We’ve begun to see how kids are appropriating the specialist language of game design; we hope ultimately to document how this might prepare them for future learning of other types of specialist language.
Category: Ecology-of-Games
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