Research Relay

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What I do When I’m Not Teaching

(or farming)

a.k.a. My Research

Katrin Becker

The outcome of any serious research can only be to make two questions grow

where only one grew before.Thorstein Veblen (1857-1947)

US Social Scientist

2K.Becker My Research

Current Researc

h:

1. Learning Design in Videogamesa) Videogame Pedagogy b) Magic Bullet (design model)c) Instructional Ethology

(methodology for analyzing serious games)

2. Body of Knowledge in Interdisciplinary Applications

3. General Education Research (just getting started)

3What I Do When I’m Not TeachingKatrin Becker, 2009

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1. The Invention of Good Games:

Understanding Learning Design in Commercial Video Games

One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the

shore for a very long time.

Andre Gide (1869-1951) French

Novelist


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This work is based on three fundamental assumptions:

1. Players must learn and indeed do learn new things while playing digital games.

2. It is possible to examine learning in a digital game without associating what is learned with value-laden educational aims.

3. Successful games are successful at least partially because they already facilitate learning.


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1.Players Learn While Playing

• All digital games are about learning.– But NOT necessarily about

Education

• Learning is what we DO.• Learning is how we win the game.


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2. Learning vs Education

Learning

Value-Neutral

Can be Coincidental

Natural

Internally Motivated*

Education

Value-Laden

Deliberate

Coerced/Persuaded

Externally Motivated*


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3. Games Facilitate Learning

• People succeed in good games because the games support them.

• We can learn about how to make good games by studying good games...


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My Approach: Study the My Approach: Study the MastersMasters

They already have it right.

Why?

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1a. Games and Pedagogy

Anyone who makes a distinction between games and learning

doesn't know the first thing about either.

Marshall McLuhan


1a. Games and Pedagogy

Made explicit connections between game design and formally accepted theory and models in teaching and learning. (connecting the dots)

Locate evidence of theories and models in games generally.

Map different theories and models onto games specifically, and entirely.


Successful Games

Facilitate

Learning

Magic Bullet 12

1b. The Magic Bullet1b. The Magic Bullet1b. The Magic Bullet1b. The Magic Bullet

A Serious Game Design Model

“One of the most difficult tasks men can perform, however much others may despise it, is the invention of good games. And it

cannot be done by men out of touch with their instinctive selves.”Carl Gustav Jung

Magic Bullet 13© 2009 K.Becker

EpistemologyEpistemologyEpistemologyEpistemology

Things we CAN learn in the game • (as deliberately designed by those who

created the game).Things we MUST learn in a game • (will always be a subset of the first category).Things we actually DID learn • (“your results may vary”).Collateral Learning • (other things we can learn - these are not

necessarily designed into the game, although sometimes designers may hope that players choose to take these up).

Cheats

Magic Bullet 14© 2009 K.Becker

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1c. Instructional Ethology

Reverse Engineering for Serious Design of Educational

Games

I have found the missing link

between the higher ape and civilized man:

It is we. Konrad Lorenz


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1b. Instructional Ethology

• This methodology combines behavioural and structural analysis to examine how commercial games support learning.

• It examines the game itself from the perspective of what the game does.

• Further, this methodology can be applied to the analysis of any software system and offers a new approach to studying interactive software.

A new methodology for game design deconstruction and analysis

to extract information about mechanisms used to support

learning.


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Methodological SynergyBehavioural AnalysisStructural Analysis

EthologyOntological

Excavation

Game as Object

Game Ethology(dynamic)

Game Structure(static)

Game Design

Documents

Reverse Engineerin

g

Behaviour Studies


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Methodological SynergyBehavioural AnalysisStructural Analysis

EthologyOntological

Excavation

Game as Object

Game Ethology(dynamic)

Game Structure(static)

Game Design

Documents

Reverse Engineerin

g

Behaviour Studies

2. Body of Knowledge in 2. Body of Knowledge in Interdisciplinary ApplicationsInterdisciplinary Applications

What does someone from one discipline need to know about another if their work requires

knowledge of both?

It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is

that they can't see the problem.

G.K.Chesterton

There is only one nature. The division into science and engineering is a human

imposition, not a natural one. Indeed, the division is a

human failure; it reflects our limited capacity to

comprehend the whole.Bill Wulf

20© Dr. K.Becker 2009 Body of Knowledge Studies - BOKIA

2. Body of Knowledge in 2. Body of Knowledge in Interdisciplinary Interdisciplinary

ApplicationsApplications• What does someone from one discipline need to know

about another to do work that requires knowledge of both? • For example,

– what does a graphic designer need to know about music? – or, what does an instructional designer creating a digital game for

learning need to know about game design?

• This also touches on broader questions, – such as what does an educated person (who is neither a scientist

nor a mathematician) need to know about science and math?

With:•Patrick Perri •Ron MacDonald•Margie MacMillan •Steven Kalmar •Jordan Pratt

21© Dr. K.Becker 2009 Body of Knowledge Studies - BOKIA

2. Body of Knowledge in 2. Body of Knowledge in Interdisciplinary ApplicationsInterdisciplinary Applications

• How to facilitate language and communication between disciplines: How do/can practitioners from diverse disciplines negotiate common meanings and terminology to facilitate effective communication?

• How do we facilitate cross-disciplinary collaborations?

• Is a viable approach to consider different disciplines as different cultures?

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General Education Research

Project

This project is looking into teaching Science and Math to non-majors generally, and

The Cluster 1 collection of courses specifically.

With:•Patrick Perri •Susan Morante

One learns more from a good scholar in a rage

than from a score of lucid and laborious drudges.

Rudyard Kipling

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General Education Research Project

How do learners connect what they have learned in their first Cluster One course to their own lives?

Goals include: 1. Identify those elements that students thought were most useful. 2. Examine the alignment of stated objectives with student-received

(perceived) learning. 3. Examine how different approaches (for example 1101 vs 1102)

affect student perceptions of learning and their perceptions of the utility of what they have learned.

4. Begin to gather a body of resources that can be applied towards further development of Level 1 General Education courses.

5. Add to the body of knowledge on preconceptions about science and math. This can be accomplished by collecting responses to surveys both at the start of the term and at the end.

Technology

Research Relay