The STEM Challenge, Video Games, and Education

The following is a guest post by Alvina Lopez. Visit her site linked at the end of this post. Learn more about the STEM Challenge at stemchallenge.org.
- JR

Not only can video games provide a means of helping learners achieve an education, but also they can serve as the impetus for that education. That’s where The National STEM Video Game Challenge comes in, a nationwide contest aimed at promoting our students’ abilities in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, subject areas in which our students have fallen behind the rest of the world.

The STEM Challenge, part of President Obama’s latest initiative to encourage science-based educational improvements, consists of two contests: the Youth Prize and the Developer Prize. The Youth Prize will reward student designers in grades 5 through 8 who create excellent games playable on open or free gaming platforms. The Developer Prize is for experienced game developers who can create the best game that gets young children excited about STEM subject areas.

But what does this contest tell us about gaming and education? Well, first, it suggests that there is occurring a shift in our educational culture that embraces gaming as another vehicle of education. Secondly, it suggests that gaming pedagogy is moving further into mainstream educational systems. Hopefully, this contest can elicit quite a few entries from students and professionals alike. After all, the more participation we see in national initiatives such as these, the better our gaming development will become, especially games with educational applications.

At least that’s the idea, right? It’s a noble idea, but also an urgent one, as recent reports show alarming changes in the way our students compare to the rest of the world in math and science. Although our students’ scores haven’t dropped significantly between 2003 and 2006, in 2009 the National Center for Education Statistics showed data that placed 15-year-old students well below their counterparts in other countries. For example, our high school students fell to the bottom quarter in math, behind students from China, Estonia, and Finland. Our high school students also fell behind the Czech Republic, Canada, and Japan in science. And, according to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, such a gap can create economic troubles in the future.

What this STEM Challenge seeks to do is invite students into the development process in order to use the joy of creation as an additional learning method. The challenge suggests that in addition to building games that help children learn, we should also encourage an active interest in education on the part of the students. Certainly as we have seen, educational games help children learn by posing problems for them to solve rather than teach them the traditional way, but this challenge takes that one step further. It requires the students to first figure out what problems exist for their design considerations, then asks them to solve those problems. It encourages them to take control of a part of their learning, which is one way we’ll be able to remain competitive globally.

This guest post is contributed by Alvina Lopez, who writes on the topics of accredited online colleges. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: alvina.lopez at gmail.com.

Serious Game Review: Do I Have a Right?

This is a serious game guest review by Alan Reid, a doc student in instructional design and technology over at Old Dominion University. – JR

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Serious Game Review: Do I Have a Right?
by Alan Reid

Source:  http://www.ourcourts.org/play-games

Game Information

“Do I Have A Right?” is an interactive web-based game that focuses on the constitution of the United States and the rights of US citizens by having the user manage a law firm. The game does not specify a target audience, but given the content, it is most likely aimed towards elementary and middle school grade levels. The ultimate intention is to educate its user on the rights guaranteed to US citizens in the constitution by presenting him or her with real world scenarios of law cases and their courtroom verdicts.  Successfully defending a client in accordance with his/her rights results in a courtroom win and an increase in “prestige” points, with which you can afford to hire more lawyers with different expertise. The host site for the game offers a teacher guide to accompany the gameplay (http://www.ourcourts.org/our-courts-pdf-library/DIHR_Game_Guide_v2.pdf), and a corresponding lesson plan on interpreting the constitution (http://www.ourcourts.org/our-courts-pdf- library/Interpreting_The_Constitution.pdf).

Interface

The graphics for the game are effective and clean. Instructions are provided as the game is played, and movement of the characters is restricted to a point-and-click of the mouse. Below (Figure 1) is a screenshot of the main office view. This is the home screen for most of the game. Your partners in the firm are seated at their desks, and potential clients walk in through the office doors. Waiting too long to address a client will result in him or her leaving in disgust.

The interface is very well organized with pertinent information about the character, money supply, and court record readily available. Also accessible is a cheat sheet of the US Constitution.

Because multiple clients enter the office at once, you must possess time management skills. As the game progresses, the user must become more familiar with the constitutional rights and their corresponding amendment, or else the potentially valuable clients leave.

Unfortunately, you cannot save your work in this game, and exiting out of the game window loses all data accrued on your character. Although, it is a free, live streaming game that doesn’t require registration, so this is to be expected.

Gameplay

The gameplay is straightforward and easy to understand. Throughout the ‘day’ at the law office, instructions guide the user from one task to the next. As each client enters the office, the user must listen to their individual case and determine whether he or she has a constitutional right or not. Figure 2 is an example of a potential client explaining his situation. The user determines whether he can be successfully defended in court or not:

The user must identify key phrases in the client’s statement in order to pair the plaintiff with a lawyer with expertise in that field. This step is crucial in the user’s understanding and interpretation of the US Constitution. The user may also do a “Rights Review” (Figure 3) to refresh their memory on which amendment is most proper for that client.

The game, however, does not simply revolve around constitutional rights and their corresponding numbers. It also requires the user to successfully run a law firm. Expenses arise during gameplay, and the user must maintain a business while increasing his or her ‘prestige points.’ This is what makes this game extremely useful for its users: real world application.

In terms of feedback, the game produces a newspaper front page that shows how your law firm is doing.

Although it is a lot to manage at first, once the user gets a firm grasp of the constitution and his rights, the game reaches a plateau. The chances of reaching a flow state while playing the game are minimal because the emphasis is on the constitution. The game climaxes at the point where the law firm has acquired enough expert lawyers to cover all of the constitutional rights. In this sense, it then just becomes a game on maintaining a successful business.

Learner Characteristics

This game is most likely in an elementary grade setting, but knowing and understanding our individual rights is applicable to all US citizens. It is most appropriate for a class in civics.

Instructional/Learning Factors

This game exemplifies a few different levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. Mainly, at face value, this game is a game of recall, remembering, and memorizing, all lower order thinking questions. This is not necessarily a bad thing, though, because in addition to recalling the constitutional amendments and their numbers, the user is also required to make an interpretation of the amendment and use judgment in each individual court case. This is evident in Figure 2 where the user decides either “You Don’t Have A Right” or “You Have A Right” after hearing the plaintiff’s scenario. Therefore, this game is productive on all levels.

It is certainly adaptable to the classroom and may be specifically beneficial to learning about citizenship and constitutional rights. Students learn what the constitution actually says in addition to applying the constitution to certain scenarios. Discussion of this game and the user’s decisions could ultimately lead to the judicial system, the Supreme Court, and the political process.

Overall Rating

This game receives an A. It is relevant, well-organized, applicable to the real world, and integral to an understanding of what being an American citizen means.