Gaming to Learn

In this session, panelists from five NSF-funded gaming projects will discuss ways in which digital game-based learning can enable learner-led exploration, taking games beyond the "quiz" model many educators still think of.

Research on human learning helps explain why computer games are so appealing. Perceptual control theory (PCT) presumes that humans are essentially intricate control mechanisms and are goal driven. PCT provides a framework that explains why young people are riveted by games with clear goals, where they recognize that intervention is possible and where their actions provide immediate and understandable feedback. Flow theory describes the state in which people are so involved in an activity that little else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it. The two principal characteristics of flow are (1) total concentration in an activity and (2) the enjoyment derived from the activity. Flow involves an optimal level of challenge. Tasks that are too difficult create anxiety and frustration. Tasks that are too easy create boredom. Additionally, flow is characterized by control over the environment. Computer games are captivating because they satisfy PCT and flow theory criteria. They encourage total concentration. Participants can derive great enjoyment and fulfillment from the activities. The level of challenge can be adapted to the user’s skills so that the user controls the computer-generated environment and gets immediate feedback.

The use of serious gaming is a logical approach in the maturation of curricula. These can add a riveting, contemporary dimension to STEM education programs, make them attractive to a wider pool of students, including females, and keep education relevant to students in an age where information and communication technology has become the dominant technological paradigm. Over the past decade, Serious Games have advanced as proprietary trainers, and educational researchers have demonstrated that it is possible to leverage the hugely successful design conventions of entertainment games to develop learning games with objectives, rules, and gameplay that present complex, situated decision structures where players learn by doing in an ideal use of constructivist pedagogy. Serious Games for education are most effective when the game goals and the learning goals are innately meshed. Serious Games for education are commercially available, and the palette of choices across curricula is steadily increasing.

But, even when a commercial game exists that is closely matched to the needs of a given curriculum, there is more to successful adoption than merely finding the financial resources to purchase the game and improve the technology infrastructure.

During the session, strategies will be shared for integrating research on conceptual change, optimizing the affordances of gaming environments, identifying quality games, establishing suitable game-design criteria and assessment methodologies, and overcoming the challenges related to widespread implementation of "gaming to learn" strategies.