Games in STEM Education

image of laptop, controller, and game piecesThis month’s Spotlight highlights the work of four DRK-12 projects that are researching games to support mathematics and science teaching and learning. We are also excited to feature two blog posts that discuss how AI is changing the landscape of games in STEM education. For those interested in learning more, browse our list of additional projects that are working in this area of the portfolio and a collection of DRK-12 publications and other related resources.

In this Spotlight:

Artificial Intelligence, Learning Games, and the Potential to Connect, Engage, and Support STEM Learners

Eric Klopfer, Professor and Director of the Scheller Teacher Education Program and The Education Arcade, MIT

Headshot of Eric KlopferIf you are as old as I am, or at least familiar with games as old as I am, you’ll know that many of the early computer games were text adventures.  These games involved setting you on a narrative drive quest, with the ability to provide two-word commands on how to interact with the environment. Commands like “GO WEST” and “LIFT TABLE” were quite common. To me, these worlds were equally fascinating and frustrating.  These were whole worlds contained on a floppy disk.  But unlocking certain parts of that world with just the right two-word command (and no Internet to search for help) was occasionally infuriating.  What I wouldn’t have done at the time to have the ability to interact with that world in a more human-centric language.

Fast forward to today, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) provides a pathway to natural language interactions with computers. No longer constrained to short or even pre-determined commands, AI opens up tremendous opportunities for more natural interactions in games...Read more.

Using AI to Connect Game-Based and Narrative-Centered Learning

Jeremy Roschelle, Executive Director of Learning Sciences Research, Digital Promise; Gautam Biswas, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Engineering and Professor of Computer Science and Computer Engineering, Vanderbilt University; Cindy Hmelo-Silver, Distinguished Professor and Associate Dean for Research and Development, Indiana University; James Lester,  Goodnight Distinguished University Professor in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, North Carolina State University

Headshots of Jeremy Roschelle, Gautam Biswas, Cindy Hmelo-Silver, and James LesterArtificial intelligence can strengthen the role of narratives in games for learning. In the NSF-funded AI Institute for Engaged Learning (EngageAI), we’re working across disciplines and with practitioners to enable more engaging experiences with story-driven learning in games for students while also strengthening the opportunities for students to learn science more deeply.

A starting place for exploring the connections between gamed-based and narrative-based learning is the role of scenes in structuring the overall student experience. In a traditional game, a “level” often introduces a change in scene, with possible changes in objective, difficulty, and opportunities to earn rewards. In narrative-centered learning, a “story beat” is a shift in the storyline, potentially with new characters, new plot aspects, or a new spatial setting, along with new opportunities for interacting with the characters or setting...Read more.

Featured Projects

EMPIRES image

Assessing the Efficacy and Implementation of a Technology-based Mathematics Intervention for Middle School Students

PI: Jessica Mislevy | Co-PIs: James Laidlaw, Haiwen Wang
Disciplines: Mathematics & Mathematics Intervention
Grade Levels: 7-8

Project Description: MidSchoolMath’s EMPIRES is a multi-player simulation game set in Ancient Mesopotamia, at the dawn of the agricultural revolution and the beginning of trade economies. Students enter an epic civilization story, with characters, a rich plot, and their own empire to manage. Players tally their assets and invest resources in an array of activities, including raising goats, learning metallurgy, and developing agriculture. EMPIRES is intentionally designed to support deep conceptual learning in middle school mathematics with evidence-based practices for intervention. Clear and concise mathematical language is used throughout the game to incrementally build an understanding of algebraic concepts. As each activity unfolds, opportunities for deep learning of mathematics—and repetitive practice—are woven into the context of the game. For example, students explore proportional relationships by investing resources into critical community projects like farming and use the Pythagorean Theorem as a tool to measure distance to a neighboring empire to complete a trade. A social network of players supports both engagement and collaboration, with the teacher’s role in EMPIRES to facilitate student interactions and peer teaching. 

With MidSchoolMath, SRI International is conducting a study in SY 2024/25 to assess the implementation of EMPIRES in grade 7 & 8 mathematics intervention classrooms, its impact on students’ mathematics achievement, factors that mediate its effectiveness, and conditions that facilitate successful use. SRI seeks to expand the study to additional interested districts in the SY 2025/26 SY. 

Affordances of Games: EMPIRES offers a fundamentally different approach to mathematics intervention in middle school, one that leverages the affordances of technology, educational gaming, and research-based principles of learning that support both cognitive and affective engagement, as well as conceptual understanding of mathematics. EMPIRES takes a multi-faceted approach in which (1) rich, narrative math problems increase conceptual comprehension; (2) animated representations of mathematics concepts support mathematical understanding; (3) multiplayer collaboration leads to peer instruction and modeling; (4) simulations offer exciting challenges that increase mathematics resiliency; and (5) a bridge curriculum aids transfer of game learning to multiple contexts, including traditional standardized tests.

EquitableTeaching & Learning with Games: Teachers find it challenging to address the wide range of learning needs found in mathematics intervention classrooms, as well as the negative emotions of students who have typically struggled with mathematics for years and find the subject frustrating and anxiety-producing. Districts often turn to technology to address math remediation needs, but many online intervention programs are comprised almost entirely of tutorial videos, number fact quizzes without context, or problems presented with animations that are entirely unrelated to mathematics concepts.  Unlike typical math intervention programs focused on memorization and low-level mathematics, EMPIRES was designed to engage students in deeper mathematics learning and comprehension. EMPIRES pedagogy centers around collaborative problem solving, promoting critical thinking and deep mathematical knowledge, and real-world simulations offering exciting challenges to increase motivation and mathematics resiliency.

Products: Video Demo of EMPIRES

Suggested Reading: Devlin, K. (2011). Mathematics education for a new era: Video games as a medium for learning. Taylor & Francis.

Bajillions Flyer Page 1

Best of Both Worlds: Developing an Innovative, Integrated, Intelligent, and Interactive System of Technologies Supporting In-Person and Digital Experiences for Early Mathematics

PI: Douglas Clements | Co-PI: Julie Sarama | Shannon Stark Guss
Disciplines: Mathematics
Grade Levels: PreK-2 (NSF-funded work focuses on grades 1-2)

Project Description: The Bajillions Project is building an innovative, interactive, integrated curricular and professional development technological system: a toolset designed to benefit all early childhood educators and their students. Young children will learn from engaging, effective digital games and face-to-face activities. Teachers will receive just-in-time professional development related to their student’s development and guidance on curricular choices and culturally sensitive pedagogical strategies. The app builds on our prior work on the mathematical learning trajectories of young children and our Curriculum Research Framework. Learning trajectories are grounded in research on children’s cognition and contain three interrelated components: a learning goal, a developmental progression of levels of thinking, and instructional activities that correlate to each level. Research-based curricular resources and professional development are not always available to underserved communities, and the pandemic has only exacerbated inequities based on income and race. Thus, all phases of research and development of the BBToolset are being conducted collaboratively with diverse communities. The project team will ensure equitable materials and access in three ways. First, the resources embedded in the Learning Trajectories activities will include extensive guides and just-in-time tips to promote culturally responsive enactment of all digital and face-to-face activities. Second, teaching approaches and strategies specifically known to promote engagement, learning, and identification for specific marginalized populations will be included, including support for multilingual learners. Third, all components are designed to be accessible to everyone, using Universal Design for Learning and incorporating many adaptations for children with disabilities.

Bajillions Flyer Page 2Affordances of Games: Using research-validated learning trajectories, Bajillions builds on what every child knows and can do. Each game offers dynamically adjusted activities and feedback, which allows for individualized learning pathways. Bajillions is built on five empirically-supported design principles to achieve the “best of both worlds” by synthesizing approaches for platforms not usually combined and sometimes considered incompatible. These are (1) Learning Trajectories Levels + Just-in-Time Support; (2) High + Low Tech; Digital + Personal (from [LT]2 , both featuring formative assessment); (3) Play and Intentional Instruction; Home and School; (4) Intelligent Adaptive Algorithms + Learning  Trajectories (with micro and macro adaptations); and (5) Curriculum (at your fingertips, including guidance from the diagnostic software) + PD (if and when you wish). Bajillions will disrupt early math education by bringing the best of learning science to join forces with the best of educational technology.

Challenges Related to Games in STEM Education & Strategies for Addressing Them: Use of specific design principles to address challenges in development (see Clements, Guss, et al., 2024)

Equitable Teaching & Learning with Games: We are employing research-based equity design (including UDL), including staff and advisory board members who are experts in diversity and culturally responsive education and diverse representation within the games. Learning trajectories are, by nature, asset-based.

Approaches to Partnership: As above, diverse staff and advisory board members and an experienced development partner (FableVision Education) known for commitment to excellence and equity.

Advice for Awardees Considering Games in STEM Education: Follow research based design principles and the Curriculum Research Framework.

Initial Findings: Initial piloting presently.

Products: 

  • Bajillions Demo Videos: Brief Trailer | Extended Trailer
  • A key component of the Bajillions project are the face-to-face personal activities which can be found on Learning and Teaching with Learning Trajectories [LT]2, a component of Bajillions. 
  • Research Publications
    • Clements, D. H., Guss, S. S., Sarama, J., & Alvarez-Vargas, D. (2024). Best of both worlds: Developing an innovative, integrated, intelligent, and interactive system of technologies supporting in-person and digital experiences for early mathematics. Computers in the Schools, 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1080/07380569.2024.2410903  
    • Clements, D. H., Lizcano, R., & Sarama, J. (2023). Research and pedagogies for early math. Education Sciences, 13(839). https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13080839
    • Clements, D. H., & Sarama, J. (2024). Systematic review of learning trajectories in early mathematics. ZDM – Mathematics Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-024-01644-1
    • Clements, D. H., Sharifnia, E. B., Lim, C.-I., Sarama, J., Vinh, M., & Schock, N. (2024). STEM for All: Promoting inclusive STEM in early childhood. Young Children, 79(3), 23-32.
    • Sarama, J., & Clements, D. H. (2020). Promoting a good start: Technology in early childhood mathematics. In E. Arias, J. Cristia, & S. Cueto (Eds.), Learning mathematics in the 21st Century: Adding technology to the equation (pp. 181-223). Inter-American Development Bank. 
    • Sarama, J., & Clements, D. H. (2020). Technology in early childhood education. In O. N. Saracho (Ed.), Handbook of research on the education of young children (Vol. 4, pp. 183–198). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429442827 
    • Sarama, J., & Clements, D. H. (2024). The Curriculum Research Framework: Supporting the scientific creation, implementation, and evaluation of curricula. In D. R. Thompson, M. A. Huntley, & C. Suurtamm (Eds.), Lessons learned from research on mathematics curriculum (pp. 157–187). Information Age. https://www.infoagepub.com/products/Lessons-Learned-from-Research-on-Mathematics-Curriculum 
  • Practioner Publications
    • Banse, H. W., Clements, D. H., Sarama, J., Day-Hess, C. A., & Joswick, C. (2021). Supporting executive function development and early mathematics through a geometry activity. YC Young Children, 76(3), 75-82.
    • Clements, D. H., Guss, S. S., & Sarama, J. (2022). Challenging but achievable math for young children: Learning and teaching with learning trajectories. Mathematics Teacher: Learning and Teaching PK-12, 115(7), 486-475. https://doi.org/10.5951/MTLT.2021.0252
    • Clements, D. H., & Sarama, J. (2021). Learning and teaching early math: The learning trajectories approach (3rd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003083528
    • Clements, D. H., Sarama, J., Brenneman, K., Duke, N. K., & Hemmeter, M. L. (2020). STREAM education at work—No, at play! A toy-making unit. YC Young Children, 75(2), 36-43.
    • Clements, D. H., Sharifnia, E. B., Lim, C.-I., Sarama, J., Vinh, M., & Schock, N. (2024). STEM for All: Promoting inclusive STEM in early childhood. Young Children, 79(3), 23-32.

Suggested Reading:

  • Morales-Doyle, D. (2024). Transformative science teaching: A catalyst for justice and sustainability. Harvard Education Press.
  • Tolbert, S., Wallace, M. F., Higgins, M., & Bazzul, J. (2024). Reimagining Science Education in the Anthropocene, Volume 2 (p. 421). Springer Nature.
  • Tan, E., & Barton, A. C. (2023). Teaching toward rightful presence in middle school STEM. Harvard Education Press.

Exploring the Integration of Systems Thinking in Biology in Participatory Professional Development

PI: Michael Cassidy | Co-PIs: Debra Bernstein, Gillian Puttick
Disciplines: Science & Technology
Grade Levels: 6-8

Project Description: Systems thinking is central to understanding biology systems, and game design has been shown to help develop systems thinking in teachers and students. The ExIST project has developed a teacher professional learning (PL) model that focuses on middle school biology concepts. Students participate in PL to illustrate the value of distributed expertise by sharing their computing knowledge; teachers co-design games with students to experience participatory practices during the PL (see a sample of student work). Teachers integrate systems thinking and game design in their existing curriculum. The PL model includes 36 hours of synchronous in-person and online activities, including four consecutive six-hour days in the summer and four three-hour sessions throughout the school year. The project is working with 14 teachers with multiple implementations over three years, involving approximately 1,900 students. Through the PL, teachers are becoming knowledgeable about applying systems thinking to interpret and understand the functioning of biology systems, integrating game design in their existing lessons to enhance student application of systems thinking skills to learning about biological systems, and engaging in participatory practices. The model expands opportunities for students to be involved in the PL process, resulting in a better understanding of their impact on teacher pedagogy when using computational tools. Project research has the potential for developing new knowledge on our understanding of NGSS-aligned teaching and learning, science content understanding, and ultimately student learning, agency, and action.

Affordances of Games: Project members and other scholars have found that students designing games were able to see gaps in their science content. Using game design encouraged them to fill those gaps. This project highlights how teachers can do the same thing. Teachers explore games and the functions of Scratch. Then they invite a student with Scratch experience to work with them to create a game during a PL session. While co-designing a game, teachers contribute science content knowledge while students explain the capabilities of Scratch and how that might look in a systems game.  

Challenges Related to Games in STEM Education & Strategies for Addressing Them: Teachers are asked to introduce technologies often in their classroom. The ways to implement can become a barrier. Our research suggests that creating participatory cultures in classrooms can help address technological barriers for implementation. For example, teachers allow students to share their expertise about the technology with their peers. Therefore, we created a PL model that starts by distributing expertise among designers. This has helped teachers notice ways others can have expertise in their classrooms.

Advice for Awardees Considering Games in STEM Education: We think students learn more by creating their own games rather than playing. Students then create a game to have a peer learn from something that they create.  

Initial Findings: Research is in progress. We have a paper under review at Journal of Science Education and Technology. We have presented at AERA, NSTA and NARST.

Products: Project Website

Suggested Reading: 

  • Tucker-Raymond, E., Cassidy, M., & Puttick, G. (2021) Science teachers’ implementations of distributed expertise to introduce computational thinking in game design. Computers & Education.
  • Puttick, G., Cassidy, M., Tucker-Raymond, E., Troiano, G., & Harteveld, C. (2023). “So, we kind of started from scratch, no pun intended”: What can students learn from designing games? Journal of Research in Science Teaching. DOI: 10.1002/tea.21918 
     

Number Box Logo

Implementation and Efficacy Study of Preschool Math Activities for Numeracy

PI: Anna Shusterman
Disciplines: Early Numeracy, Mathematics
Grade Levels: Preschool

Project Description: Math games and play engage young children's interest in numbers, counting, abstract concepts, logic, and symbolic reasoning. In preschools, there is a critical need for more support for early numeracy, just as there is for early literacy, social skills, and other domains, and evidence suggests that relatively little attention is given to supporting early numeracy in most preschool settings. The Wesleyan Preschool Math Games is an early math intervention, designed to facilitate preschool math skills through 11 interactive games. The games are carefully crafted to target important early numeracy skills like one-to-one correspondence (counting each object in a set only once, with one touch per object), numeral recognition (identifying Arabic numerals and connecting them to quantities), more/less, and cardinality (understanding that the last number in a count list gives the total number of items in the set). Equally important, the games are designed to elicit delight, curiosity, and engagement, so that children want to play them over and over, and flexible enough to be used at a variety of levels of children’s understanding even if they are playing in the same group. In this study, we trained preschool teachers and undergraduate ‘math ambassadors’ to deliver the intervention, using either ‘high guidance’ or ‘low guidance’ pedagogical styles. The teachers or math ambassadors had significant autonomy in deciding which game to play when; there was no specific sequence for presenting the games, since they were designed to be played repeatedly and, under ideal circumstances, independently by the children once they had been introduced.

Affordances of Games: Games are intrinsically enjoyable, and for this reason they are useful to promote learning of any concept or skill that require extended input or practice. Counting and numeracy is one such domain, so creating games that children wanted to play over and over was key.

Partnership Approaches: We have relied on community involvement and collaboration throughout the project. First, we have tested each game in local preschool classrooms, where feedback from teachers and students has been iteratively incorporated into the game designs over many years. Second, we have benefitted from our longstanding partnerships with local preschools, as well as new collaborations with undergraduates at other local universities, allowing us to bring our games to 98 classrooms. Third, we maintain a philosophy that any classroom intervention has to have the potential to be seamless incorporated into existing classrooms, and we continuously look for and try to remove any barriers to implementation. 

Challenges Related to Games in STEM Education & Strategies for Addressing Them: In a preschool setting, teachers are occupied with a wide variety of tasks and responsibilities, but supporting children’s conceptual learning requires sustained time and attention. One support that we have tried successfully is training undergraduate math ambassadors to work alongside classroom teachers essentially as math coaches. They add to the intellectual stimulation and supportiveness of the classroom, and they can sit with individual or small groups of children to engage in the games. College students and preschoolers really enjoy each other’s company, so this has been a win-win solution for adding more STEM support into early childhood classrooms.

Initial Findings: Consistent with our pilot studies, children readily engaged in and enjoyed the math games. Contrary to some of our hypotheses, children did not necessarily engage the math concepts in the games without adult support, suggesting that these games will be most effective with adult scaffolding. We found that ongoing coaching and support for the adults conducting the implementation was essential. While we did not see strong effects on math knowledge for the intervention group relative to the control group in this study, the high engagement by children suggests that this intervention has good potential at a higher dosage (times per week and total weeks). 

Suggested Reading: 

  • Shusterman, A., May, N., Melvin, S., Kumar, S., Blumenstock, S., Toomey, M., & Lewis, S. (2019). Working in the research-to-practice gap: Case studies, core principles, and a call to action. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/qhxbn
  • Ramani, G.B. & Eason, S.H. (2015). It all adds up: Learning early math through play and games. Phi Delta Kappan, 96(8), 27-32.

Additional Projects

We invite you to explore a sample of the other recently awarded and active work with a focus on games in STEM education.

Related Resources

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