This is a project to explore Game-based, Metaphor Enhanced (GaME) design. GaME is a method for applying cognitive science metaphor theory toward the design of computer-mediated learning environments. The process uses structure mapping theory to design videogame worlds aligned with science concepts. This is a rigorous specification procedure for mapping relational structure from targeted concept to game world. GaME design translates a targeted concept into a game system, game play, and game goal. Because the relational structure of the game world is designed as an analog of the targeted conceptual domain, players begin to construct mental models of the targeted concept during interactive gameplay. This makes learning concrete and embodied. Gameplay experiences are designed to guide the learner to discover the relational structure of the targeted concept. This gameplay is a readiness activity for preparing the learner for subsequent instruction. The primary objective of the Cyber-Enabled Teaching and Learning through Game-based, Metaphor Enhanced Learning Objects (CyGaMEs) project is to empirically test this application of cognitive science theory. Aptly designed videogame worlds will provide common experience that prepares educators and their learners to achieve success. CyGaMEs employs cognitive science, informatic sciences, and analysis methodologies to enhance control over what games do: Engage learning through doing, discovery, and inquiry. While each player takes an idiosyncratic route, applied structure mapping theory ensures that gameplay exploration proceeds toward the learning goal. Selene: A Lunar Creation GaME is the core of CyGaMEs research. This project will: (a) complete, refine and test existing Selene prototype, (b) collect GaME data representing perceptions and learning, (c) develop and refine new methods and metrics for assessing motivation, engagement, and achievement within instructional videogames, and (d) integrate GaME data collection and assessment within a cyber-enabled informatics infrastructure.
Learners expect instructional technologies will enhance success in learning and lifelong achievement, demanding: "Guide me! Guide me to discover and apply new knowledge." "Show me! Show me what I learned, how well I learned it, what I need to know, and how best to progress toward those new learning goals." By addressing these needs, CyGaMEs advances the nation’s learning technology capacity. CyGaMEs is an innovative approach to instructional game design and embedded assessment, combining what scientists know about how people learn with what designers know about video games. A CyGaMEs environment works . . . the way the mind does. CyGaMEs translates knowledge (what scientists THINK) into procedural gameplay (what learners DO). This makes learning more intuitive. When new knowledge is intuitive, learners are better prepared and more successful. The CyGaMEs design process (Metaphorics) aligns instructional games with targeted knowledge. Because of alignment, new knowledge construction is concrete and embodied. CyGaMEs Metaphorics produces instructional video games that analyze learners’ gameplay to measure and report learner achievement. CyGaMEs environments measure when people learn (the aha! moment), the rate of learning, and changes in that rate. They measure how people feel while learning and the interaction between learning and self-perceptions of experience. Researchers use these data to understand individual learners, patterns across learners, and learning in and across instructional games. Teachers use these data in gradebook format to assess how best to mentor their students. And these same data populate the CyGaMEs dashboard. The dashboard is a visualization that players and their teachers easily understand: a real-time achievement report for each individual learner. Often, learners new to a topic are unaware of challenges they must master. They can be overconfident. The CyGaMEs dashboard gives players a more realistic perspective while increasing learner persistence. CyGaMEs players’ self-perceptions show an increase in striving when the instructional game includes a dashboard. The dashboard helps players define and work toward targeted expertise. A CyGaMEs environment integrates the dashboard and dashboard achievements within the game. Selene: A Lunar Construction GaME is the CyGaMEs learning environment funded through this period of performance. Nationally and internationally, Selene and the CyGaMEs approach have won multiple awards and recognition. Selene contains the game analog for fundamental Earth and space science concepts targeted by the Next Generation Science Standards (MS-ESS1-2, MS-ESS1-3, MS-ESS1-4, MS-ESS2-2, HS-ESS1-6, and HS-ESS2-3). Players form the Earth’s Moon. Then they pepper it with impact craters and flood it with lava flows. Through this embodied gameplay, players discover and apply foundational concepts such as accretion, differentiation, impact cratering, and volcanism. Lunar scientist Charles A. Wood makes a cameo appearance within Selene, debriefing players through 12 minutes of Selene science instructional videos. CyGaMEs MoonGazers activities integrate Selene video game learning within curricular units. Educators can turn their students into MoonGazers or become MoonGazers themselves. A unit of study begins with Selene and continues with hands-on activities. Selene makes Moon viewing meaningful. Prepared with new skills and knowledge, students go outside to explore the Moon using the unaided eye and affordable astrophotography (a $200 telescope and $100 camera). Young people and adults develop MoonGazer skills through a sequence of teaching and learning opportunities. The Moon is unique for Earth-bound observers. The Moon’s surface preserves 4.5 billion years of solar system history. From Earth, the Moon is the only body in the entire universe on which we can see impact cratering and volcanic features. Selene science is knowledge children can carry home today and share with their own children tomorrow. Because game-based learning is new to students and educators, CyGaMEs developed a teaching and learning aid to increase learner success. This Gameplay Inquiry Cycle guides players to the type of cognitive flexibility that supports advance problem solving. All player components of Selene are available in Spanish and English. This extends the project’s broader impacts through capacity to leverage learners’ primary language linguistic resources within instructional game-based technologies. CyGaMEs partners with the National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE) to bring this opportunity to Spanish-speaking learners and their educators. Selene is both a learning environment and research environment. Each gameplay gesture helps researchers and designers develop principles for effective instructional game design and embedded assessment. Selene helps educators and researchers build and test theory about the best ways to integrate instructional games and embedded assessment into education. The CyGaMEs data management system houses the entire data corpus and data lexicons for free download. External evaluation based upon intellectual merit and broader impacts touched upon above finds the CyGaMEs project exemplary (http://selene.cet.edu/default.aspx?page=reports). Find out more: Selene website. http://selene.cet.edu Selene dashboard achievements. Spanish. http://selene.cet.edu/default.aspx?page=logros English. http://selene.cet.edu/default.aspx?page=achievements CyGaMEs Gameplay Inquiry Cycle for how to engage in gameplay inquiry. http://selene.cet.edu/Default.aspx?page=educators#InquiryCycle MoonGazers. http://selene.cet.edu/default.aspx?page=moongazers Metaphorics. www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG58dcdKf90 Selene II data and lexicons. http://dms.wju.edu/Projects/Index.aspx?projectid=15 Badges. English. http://selene.cet.edu/default.aspx?page=badges Spanish. http://selene.cet.edu/default.aspx?page=insignias CyGaMEs Community Testimonials. http://selene.cet.edu/default.aspx?page=testimonials Stakeholder reactions to CyGaMEs approach. www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6ALdEiAs4I
