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“Stealthy Assessment” of Learning through Games
“SimCityEDU: Pollution Challenge, an educational version of the popular city-building video game, is a known quantity in a fresh wave of serious learning games that bridge the gap between instruction and assessment.
Released last November, the game—in which students acting as mayors must balance the growth of their cities with environmental impacts—tracks, analyzes, and feeds back to teachers through dashboards more than 3,000 different data points showing how well each student understands systems thinking.
“If a student builds one bus stop, then waits before strategically building other bus stops, he has an eye for problem-solving that I would not have gotten with a multiple-choice or written test,” said Matt Farber, a social studies teacher who beta-tested SimCityEDU with 6th graders at the 650-student Valleyview Middle School in Denville, N.J. “We used to try formal assessments every day, and then do a summative assessment at the end of a unit every two weeks and pretty much move on, but you don’t get a lot of reflection with that. Now, there’s iteration, which I hadn’t planned on. Students get competitive for their personal best.”That is the double benefit of games with embedded assessments, say those who develop and use them. They not only provide a deeper insight into understanding, allowing educators to more quickly identify students’ strengths and weaknesses, but they also thwart a growing disengagement from traditional forms of evaluation. Teachers commonly report that games with embedded assessments encourage students to look at failure as opportunity—a way of thinking that will serve them well as they grow up.
Expect to see more assessment-embedded video games in classrooms soon, experts predict.
GlassLab, a digital learning game-development studio based in Redwood City, Calif., and the creator of SimCityEDU, plans to develop five more serious learning games with embedded assessments over the next three years with grant money from the Bill & Melinda Gates and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur foundations. “We’re on track, but frankly, we don’t think that’s enough,” said Jessica Lindl, the general manager of GlassLab, a project of the New York City-based nonprofit Institute of Play. “We want to empower and accelerate the entire market. At the end of our grant, we don’t want just six games. We want thousands of other games to be created.”
To read the full article by Robin L. Flanigan, click here;
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/03/13/25games.h33.html
BrainPOP’s Allisyn Levy on video games in education, BrainPop’s goals with animation, and top quality educational games through GameUp
“In a world filled with boring educational games that are only purchased by grandparents, Allisyn Levy is part of a company that is creating games that are not only educational, but are also entertaining. Levy received her Bachelors of Elementary Education, Art, and Art History from Skidmore College, and earned a Masters of Education in School Administration and Technology from Western Washington University. This published scholar has coached a Lego Robotics team, developed documentaries with students, was an elementary educator for 11 years, and has received grants from Donors Choose and Nike. Now as BrainPOP’s Senior Director of Educator Experience, Levy is using her extensive background in education to help teachers better integrate technology into the classroom. We recently had the opportunity to talk with Levy about her thoughts on using video games in education, BrainPOP’s background and goals, and its latest feature, click GameUp.”
To read the full article by Clelia Rivera click here.
Gaming and Education 