Today, I want to introduce a case study about a drill and practice game.
A drill and practice game is one type of puzzle game. As what its name tells us, the purpose of a drill and practice game is to support drill and practice. Different from simulation games I wrote about in last several weeks, drill and practice games are not thought as an effective tool to improving learning and skills by most researchers. The case study I introduce today takes a close look at drill and practice game and want to find out how a drill and practice works, what characteristics they embody, and what learners are doing as they play a game, thus informing whether and how drill and practice games would be a pedagogically sound learning environment.
ASTRA EAGLE[1] was been used in this study, which comprises a serious of web-based online game and developed by the Center for Advanced Technologies of a school district. These games are designed to reinforce academic standards for mathematics required by Pennsylvania System of School Assessment.
The research site is an elementary school in the same district. Participants are 15 4th-5th grade students who were enrolled in a summer program, where this study will be conducted. All the participants played eight ASTRA EAGLE math games during 10 two-hour sessions for five weeks.
The researcher found these drill and practice games enhance students' positive attitudes toward math learning significantly. However, what should be noted is that not every game would engage students' learning. The data shows some good learning game design principles, such as "situating learning activities within the game story and characters that players will take on, making games pleasantly challenging, and scaffolding reflections". Also, the off-computer activities are important, such as offline assistive learning tools, game-based collaborative activities, and the just-in-time guidance of an instructor.
Ke, F. (2008). A case study of computer gaming for math: Engaged learning from gameplay?. Computers & Education, 51(4), 1609-1620.
[1] You don't need an ID and password to log in, just click the login button in the login page, the website will assign you an account.
I really learn somrthing new from your post! The two principles of good game designment are very important. There are lots of games online, different games are of various uses. some games are designed to make stduents lean different subjects; while others are designed to amuse people. The ones that are used to study with should be of real use to help stduent to learn. In science, if students could use game to learn in a inquiry based ways or group project way, they would learn a lot from cooperating with others.
ReplyDeleteCreating this positive attitude in these young students toward learning any subject really is always a great thing. Like Xioxin said, it's important to incorporate those two principles of good educational game designment. In these tools of learning its important to engage the students while educating them. Great example!
ReplyDeleteInteresting find! It is always always always important to do follow up evaluations and assessments. If we never did we would never improve. So the fact that they found that not all games were engaging and educational at the same time is important. It takes careful planning to combine them both.
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