Post on 05-Jul-2015
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DESIGNING
GAMES FOR
LEARNING
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CHARLES M. REIGELUTH, PH.D.
PROFESSOR EMERITUS, INDIANA UNIVERSITY
RODNEY D. MYERS, PH.D.
INDEPENDENT SCHOLAR
BACKGROUND
Oct 2009 – IPA agreement with AFRL to “… provide
recommendations about instructional and learning theory …
Contract in Feb 2013 to prepare a report providing research-
based guidelines for the design of serious games in the Air
Force.
Instructional aspects
Gaming aspects
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INTRODUCTION
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Benefits of serious games
• Games capitalize on the relationship between action and
cognition (learning by doing)
• Authentic practice in specific roles and contexts
• Games promote team development, social learning, and
social cohesion
• Collaboration, distributed knowledge, and collective efficacy
• Games enhance learner engagement and effort
• Immersion and flow prolonged and focused engagement
• Control, autonomy, self-efficacy
INTRODUCTION
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Benefits of serious games
• Games provide a safe environment for learning
• Scaffold learners toward required competencies
• Games are customizable
• Variable levels of authenticity
• Dynamic difficulty adjustment for optimal challenge
INTRODUCTION
Criteria for selecting serious games as an instructional
strategy
• Effectiveness
• Skills as game actions
• Tasks include variations and are increasingly complex
• Risk requires safe environment for practice
• Efficiency
• Time and cost of development
• Time and cost of learning
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FUZZY VISION
Six fundamental design principles
1. Authenticity
• Scenario, roles, and contextual factors are consistent with whole, real-
world tasks
2. Levels of difficulty
• Must be mastered by each player before progressing to the next level
• Designed using Simplifying Conditions Method (Elaboration Theory)
3. Scaffolding
• 3 Forms: Adjust task environment, Coaching, Instructional overlay
• Virtual mentor – just-in-time coaching and instruction
• When: Automatic, triggered by player action, requested by player
• Quicker, easier, more enjoyable
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FUZZY VISION
Six fundamental design principles
4. Part-task mastery
• When the game is paused, KSAs are mastered before game continues
• Ensures mastery across range of situations, automatization
5. Feedback
• Natural consequences during game play
• Player can request explanations by virtual mentor
• Virtual mentor provides debriefing at end of each performance
• Immediate feedback is provided in instructional overlay
6. Motivation
• A score for each role
• Collaboration (when appropriate), authenticity, confidence (levels)
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ELEMENTS OF THE
GAME SPACE
• Goal(s)
• Game mechanics
• Rules
• Players
• Environment
• Objects
• Information
• Technology
• Narrative
• Aesthetics
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ELEMENTS OF THE
GAME SPACE
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ELEMENTS OF THE
GAME SPACE
Goal(s)
To achieve the configuration of game elements that matches the winning
state defined in the rules
• Desired learning outcomes Goals of game (authenticity)
• Achieving the goals of the game = Achieving the learning goals
• Subgoals (authenticity, levels of difficulty, motivation)
• Whole, authentic tasks > Subgoals > Final goals
• Levels: progressive difficulty/complexity
• Game (learning) cycles Motivation
• Acquire tools and abilities
• Develop skillfulness by completing tasks
• Achieve subgoals through mastery
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Goal(s) | Game mechanics | Rules | Players | Environment
Objects | Information | Technology | Narrative |Aesthetics
ELEMENTS OF THE
GAME SPACE
Game mechanics
Actions governed by rules that a player may take with or on one or more game elements
• Desired learning outcomes Actions (authenticity)
• Core mechanics
• Must master to achieve goals
• Should become skill-based (automatic) through practice
• Compound mechanics
• Two or more mechanics combined by a rule
• Recur less frequently than core mechanics
• Peripheral mechanics
• Optional/non-vital in achieving goals
• Novel (non-recurrent) and knowledge-based
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Goal(s) | Game mechanics | Rules | Players | Environment
Objects | Information | Technology | Narrative |Aesthetics
ELEMENTS OF THE
GAME SPACE
Rules
Define the possibilities of and constraints on actions in a game, as well as
the rewards and penalties for those actions
• Tightly bound with mechanics
• Player expectations based on precedent
• Outcomes and feedback consistent with real world (authenticity and
feedback)
• Game balancing
• Designing the relationships among all of the elements to promote the
desired game experience
• Playtest frequently to observe results of design decisions
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Goal(s) | Game mechanics | Rules | Players | Environment
Objects | Information | Technology | Narrative |Aesthetics
ELEMENTS OF THE
GAME SPACE
Players
The individuals who choose to undergo the experience of a game
• Possible single- and multi-player configurations (Avedon, 1971)
• Intra-individual, extra-individual, aggregate, inter-individual, unilateral,
multi-lateral, intra-group, inter-group
• Roles and avatars
• Game dynamics
• Emergent patterns of interplay between mechanics, rules, and players
• Observed during playtesting
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Goal(s) | Game mechanics | Rules | Players | Environment
Objects | Information | Technology | Narrative |Aesthetics
ELEMENTS OF THE
GAME SPACE
Environment
The setting in which the action of the game takes place
• Movement
• Structure: discrete or continuous (or a combination)
• Dimensionality: linear, rectilinear, 2D, 3D
• Perspective
• Isometric (or top-down): 2D simulations and strategy games
• First-person: 3D subjective
• Third-person: 3D objective (“camera” perspective)
• Physics
• Time
• Play time and event time (Juul, 2004)
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Goal(s) | Game mechanics | Rules | Players | Environment
Objects | Information | Technology | Narrative |Aesthetics
ELEMENTS OF THE
GAME SPACE
Objects
The components of the game system that embody and enable the game
mechanics or are affected by the player’s use of game mechanics
• Diegetic objects
• Exist in the game setting; accessible to an avatar
• Non-diegetic objects
• Exist outside the game setting; accessible to the player
• Properties (or attributes)
• Static or dynamic states
• Affordances make apparent how the object is used
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Goal(s) | Game mechanics | Rules | Players | Environment
Objects | Information | Technology | Narrative |Aesthetics
ELEMENTS OF THE
GAME SPACE
Information
• About avatars
• Role and attribute states, inventory, location
• About objects
• Attribute states related to game mechanics
• About events
• Feedback: immediate result of the use of game mechanics
• Narrative information: descriptions of past performance, backstory, cut scenes, pending tasks, and other information related to the story
• About the environment
• Maps, sensory cues (esp. for tone and mood)
• About the system
• Game state, available system procedures
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Goal(s) | Game mechanics | Rules | Players | Environment
Objects | Information | Technology | Narrative |Aesthetics
ELEMENTS OF THE
GAME SPACE
Technology
• Equipment
• Physical pieces required to play
• Videogames
• Computing device (platform)
• Screen and speakers
• Physical interface
• Virtual interface
• Network for multiplayer
• Data storage
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Goal(s) | Game mechanics | Rules | Players | Environment
Objects | Information | Technology | Narrative |Aesthetics
ELEMENTS OF THE
GAME SPACE
Narrative
A sequence of events that tells a story
• Episodic memory
• Familiar frame of reference (genre)
• Cognitive frame of reference (schema)
• Structure
• Linear
• Branching
• Foldback (multiple paths leading to a single event)
• Roles
• Shaffer’s (2006) epistemic frame: a set of “skills, knowledge,
identities, values, and epistemology that professionals use to think in
innovative ways” (p. 12)
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Goal(s) | Game mechanics | Rules | Players | Environment
Objects | Information | Technology | Narrative |Aesthetics
ELEMENTS OF THE
GAME SPACE
Aesthetics
A player’s emotional responses and felt experiences as a result of interacting with/in a game system
• How will the player feel? (Hunicke, LeBlanc, & Zubek, 2004)
• Challenge (obstacle course)
• Fellowship (social framework)
• Discovery (uncharted territory)
• Expression (self-discovery)
• Fantasy (make-believe)
• Authenticity and realism
• Physical (feels real)
• Perceptual (seems real)
• Functional (acts real)
• Cognitive (matches mental model)
• Emotional (evokes reality)
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Goal(s) | Game mechanics | Rules | Players | Environment
Objects | Information | Technology | Narrative |Aesthetics
ELEMENTS OF THE
GAME SPACE
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Goal(s) | Game mechanics | Rules | Players | Environment
Objects | Information | Technology | Narrative |Aesthetics
ELEMENTS OF THE
SCAFFOLDING
• Adjusting
• Coaching
• Instructing
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ELEMENTS OF THE
SCAFFOLDING
Adjusting
• Definition
• Adjusts aspects of the game for ZPD, behind the scenes
• Indications
• When the task is too difficult for the player
• When adjusting is better than coaching or instructing
• Kinds of Adjusting
• Provide easier cases first (SCM)
• Provide artificial prompts – with fading
• Perform parts of the task for the player – with fading
• Access (Timing)
• Universal, Triggered, or Requested
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ELEMENTS OF THE
SCAFFOLDING
Coaching
• Definition
• Provides cognitive and/or emotional support to the player, usually during performance, without teaching – can pause the game
• Indications
• When the task is too difficult for the player
• When coaching is better than adjusting or instructing (just a little help)
• Kinds
• Provide information, a hint or tip, or an understanding
• Inquisitory (Socratic) or expository form
• Timing
• Before, during, or after a performance
• Access
• Universal, Triggered, or Requested (without freezing time if authentic)
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ELEMENTS OF THE
SCAFFOLDING
Instructing
• Definition
• Provides information and activities appropriate for the kind of learning
– must pause the game, is offered JIT
• Indications
• When a significant amount of learning effort is required
• Access
• Universal, Triggered, Requested, or Suggested
• Formats
• Part-task selection (customized?), Virtual mentor (present?)
• Strategies for instruction and assessment
• Coming up
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ELEMENTS OF THE
SCAFFOLDING
Instructing
• Strategies for memorization
• Primary strategies
• Present, Practice (Test) (Consistent with real task)
• Secondary strategies
• Repetition, Chunking, Spacing, Prompting, Mnemonics, Review
• Use more with increasingly difficult tasks
• Control strategies
• System control, or Player control over …
• Presentation or practice, amount of repetition, chunking, spacing,
prompting, mnemonics, review
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ELEMENTS OF THE
SCAFFOLDING
Instructing
• Strategies for skills
• Primary strategies
• Generality, Example, Practice (Test), Feedback (Consistent)
• Secondary strategies
• G: Attention-focusing devices, Alternative rep, Simultaneous E
• E: Attention-focusing devices, Alternative rep, Easy-dif, Diverg
• P: Easy-difficult sequence, Divergence, Prompting, Overlearning
• FB: Attention-focusing devices, Alternative representations
• Control strategies
• System control, or Player control over …
• Inductive or deductive, G-E-P, all secondary strategies
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ELEMENTS OF THE
SCAFFOLDING
Instructing
• Strategies for causal understanding
• Primary strategies
• Acquisition (G, E), Application (P, FB) (Consistent)
• Secondary strategies
• G: Expository or Confirmatory with prototyp E; Atten foc, Alt rep
• E: Passive or Active (manipulation of c or e); Atten foc, Alt rep
• P: Easy-difficult, Divergent, Overlearning
• FB: Natural or Artificial; Confirmatory, Hint, or Explanation;
Informational or Motivational; Atten foc, Alt rep
• Performance strategies
• Explanation, Prediction, Solution; Performance Routine (GEP)
• Control strategies – System or Player Control
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ELEMENTS OF THE
SCAFFOLDING
Instructing
• Strategies for process understanding – similar to those for
causal understanding except …
• Performance strategies
• Description of the natural process (events, sequence)
• Performance routine
• Primary strategies
• G-E-P-FB for the natural process (Consistent)
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ELEMENTS OF THE
SCAFFOLDING
Instructing
• Strategies for conceptual understanding
• Dimensions of understanding
• Superordinate, Coordinate, and Subordinate (in which the
concepts may be either parts or kinds of each other)
• Analogical, Experiential, Functional, etc.
• Primary strategies
• Description (G), Application (P), Feedback (Consistent)
• Secondary strategies
• G: Expository or Confirmatory
• P: No. of dimensions, separate or integrated with the task
• FB: Confirmatory, Hint, Description; Informational, Motivational
• Control strategies – System or Player Control
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ELEMENTS OF THE
SCAFFOLDING
Instructing
• Strategies for attitudes and values
• Primary strategies for
• Cognitive component: Persuasion
• Affective component: Operant conditioning
• Behavioral component: Practice for habit
• Secondary strategies
• Move all three components along continuum simultaneously
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CONCLUDING
REMARKS
Fundamental
Design Principles
• Authenticity
• Levels of
difficulty
• Scaffolding
• Part-task
mastery
• Feedback
• Motivation
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Elements of the Game Space
• Goal(s)
• Game mechanics
• Rules
• Players
• Environment
• Objects
• Information
• Technology
• Narrative
• Aesthetics
Elements of
Scaffolding
• Adjusting
• Coaching
• Instructing
QUESTIONS AND
COMMENTS?
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Chapter in Green Book IV
Full Report available at: www.reigeluth.net/
Click on “Publications” > “Instructional Theory” and scroll to
bottom of page for the PDF.
Emails:
reigelut@indiana.edu
rod@webgrok.com