leanna prater - can you create a game?: rethinking student assessment

Leanna Prater Fayette County Public Schools

Lexington, KY

“You mean this game is my grade?”

Our Students

Occupational Activities of

Children

PlayingThinkingLearning

Seymour Papert

Papert, S. (1980). Teaching children thinking. In R. Taylor (Ed.), The computer in school: Tutor, tool, tutee (pp. 161-176). New York, NY: Teachers College Press .

21st CenturySkills Needed

• think critically• solve problems creatively

• innovate• collaborate• communicate

Computational Thinking is a skill everyone needs for life and work in the digital age

Today

What’s in a Game

• A Story, characters, setting• Player Goals• Problems to solve• Scaffolds• Score• Animation• Rewards• Ability to keeping trying• Play with a friend or a team

What’s in a Game

• A Story, characters, setting• Player Goals• Problems to solve• Scaffolds• Interactive• Score• Animation• Rewards• Ability to keeping trying• Play with a friend or a team

Narrative Writing

Calculating

DemonstrationOf Knowledge

Create or Build a Model

Performance

Looking at Assessment

Previous Work:Children as Game

Designers

Yasmin KafaiIdit Harel

Design Needed to Be….

• Replicable• Fit within time constraints• Cross –curricular• Closely tied to standards• Sustainable

Framework: Based on Theory

ConstructivismPiaget

ConstructionismPapert

Social ConstructivismVygotsky

Create a Challenge Using Substitution Model

Assess standard with extended response

Assess standard by asking students to calculate a math problem

Assess standard by asking students to create a model

Games have narrative structure, characters, setting, plots

Games have scoreCharacters move

Games could involve a digital model that is interactive, player goal

The Task

ConstraintsBrainstorm and Planning

Testing and Debugging (real audience)Reflection

CAN YOU CREATE A SCRATCH GAME?

Can you make a game with the following conditions?• Correctly use a geosphere and a hydrosphere. • Explain with words or pictures how the geosphere and hydrosphere

interact. • Have at least one background change• Character must move within the program• Player can interact with the game.

5-ESS2-1 Develop a model using an example to describe ways the geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and/or atmosphere interact.

Constraints

Brainstorm your game or story:• Think about the systems you will use. • Select backgrounds and sprites to match your

systems.• How will players interact with your program?• What is the goal of the game?

Brainstorm and Planning

Create your program on the computer.• Test it out, does it work?• Have a friend play. Did it work for them? If not, why?• Go back and fix your program and try again.

Testing and Debugging

Think: How could you have improved your game?

Reflection

The Process

Authentic Instruction• Task – Student Centered, real-world relevant• Process- Sustained investigation, multiple

interpretation/outcomes• Environment- Learning takes place in

collaborative groups, over time• Teacher - coach/facilitator• Product - designed for a real audience• Assessment- authentic, integrated, leads to life-

long learning.Callison & Lamb, 2004; Herrington, Oliver, & Reeves, 2003; Lombardi, 2007; Maina, 2004;

Renzulli, Gentry, & Reis, 2004; Means & Olson, 1994

Total time with students: 50-55 minute class period30-35 days a year

3 elementary STEM lab teachers3 suburban elementary schools

• Various Access to Technology

• Teachers reported all students came with some game play experience

Diverse Student Populations

School 1: Houses Deaf/Hard Hearing ClusterSchool 2: over 30 different nationalities, 16% ESLSchool 3: 67% students receive free/reduced lunch

Instructional Design

http://www.bscs.org/bscs-5e-instructional-modelBiological Sciences Curriculum Study

The Work

Examples

Assessment

Assessment of Learning TargetsScore0 = No Evidence1 = some evidence2 = strong evidence

Name:___________________________ Date of Target Check_______

NOTES

Did the student correctly write decimals to the thousandths place? 0 1 2

Did the student correctly use the “>” symbol to compare decimals to the thousandths place?

0 1 2

Did the student correctly use the “<” symbol tocompare decimals to the thousandths place?

0 1 2

Did the student correctly use the “=” symbol to compare decimals to the thousandths place?

0 1 2

Did the student correctly read the decimals in the game they created?

0 1 2

Assessment of Game Design    

Player could not win game by simply guessing 0 1 2

Game incorporated “>“, “<“, and “=“ symbols 0 1 2

Goals and rules of the game were clear 0 1 2

Graphics were appealing and added to the game 0 1 2

Information in the game was accurate 0 1 2

A peer successfully played the game 0 1 2

Project Rubric

Scale: 0 = not attempted 1= attempted 2= met requirements 3= exceeds requirements

Requirements Points Earned

Use a control to begin the game

Use a code to create a secret word

Create a code to allow a player to hear each letter in your secret word or phrase

Use “Ask and Answer” to make the game interactive with a player.

Total Points

What We’re Learning

Students asGame Designers=

Evolved to

Students as:Game Designers

Story MakersArtists

Programmers

Leveling the Playing Field for Kids

Playtesting is important.

Many kids felt like a “game designer”.

“Game designers mess up sometimes, and I messed up a couple of times.”

“It was our idea completely. So we made it the way we wanted to.”

“I was making something I could play.”

“I did feel like a game designer in a way because you got to make lots of choices on how you wanted it to be.”

Those who didn’t…...

“Game designers make games for years.”

“It is not going to get popular or heard of.”

“Felt like regular 4th grade.”

“It was an assignment, not a choice.”

Shared Knowledge.

Role of the teacher

Developing Computational ThinkingSkills, Vocabulary and Content

Teacher needs for new technologies, including game based learning.

Intellectual Partnerships

“I’ve never felt more valued as an educator.”

Building a Community

Let’s Meet UP!New York, NY Cambridge, MA

Resources

Blogs.fcps.net/createagame

Leanna PraterFayette County Schools

Dr. Joan MazurUniversity of KY

Thanks!