Leveling Up: Supporting and Measuring High School STEM Knowledge Building in Social Digital Games

该项目为高中生设计、开发和测试一个数字游戏环境，在关于拯救地球生态系统的替代现实游戏中促进和衡量科学学习。玩家共同努力，以解决科学的挑战，使用广泛的工具，包括一个集中的基于网络的游戏网站和社交网络工具，沿着与手持智能手机，和一个基于化身的大型多人在线环境（MMO）。TERC的EdGE与GameGurus，高中教师和评估专家一起开发Leveling Up。该游戏要求玩家为科学知识建设社区做出贡献;玩家评价彼此对社区学习和决策的贡献，以解决挑战。设计师还与高中教师合作开发桥梁活动，利用游戏中的科学学习用于正规教育。总的来说，该项目的目标是了解游戏环境作为直接干预的潜力，并作为转化和衡量高中STEM学习的催化剂。Leveling Up的研究将社交数字游戏中测量的科学学习与基于课程的类似内容和技能评估进行了比较，并使用设计文档，参与者观察，调查，访谈和学生工作的数据解释了结果。形成性研究和迭代设计与15个试验班（10-12年级）的队列，导致一组已在科学结构和一组共同的等效课程和评估实施研究方面验证的评估。在该项目的第三年，研究人员研究了12个治疗班和3个对照班，以比较学生在游戏中的进步和他们在课堂评估中的收获。此外，一半的实验班使用教室桥梁活动，一半不使用，每个治疗组有180名学生，对照组有90名学生。研究人员使用多层次模型来检验“升级”游戏和桥牌活动对高中生科学知识的影响。独立评估员（ILI）验证形成和实施研究结果的解释。升级是STEM教育领域的基本第一步，以了解如何利用当今社会中普遍出现的社交媒体，包括社交数字游戏现象，为未来创造令人兴奋和富有成效的STEM学习环境。这些技术和知识建设过程对于建设未来的劳动力至关重要，这些劳动力具有科学，技术和数据素养，并体现了调查和协作技能，有助于对地球生态系统和我们时代的其他重要科学和社会问题做出富有成效的知情决策。这个名为Leveling Up的项目为公众提供了一个持续的STEM游戏环境，以及一个可用于其他社交数字游戏的高中STEM评估模型。最后，Leveling Up还提供了一个活动模型，将社交数字游戏中的科学探究与高中STEM课程中教授的技能和内容联系起来。

This project designs, develops and tests a digital gaming environment for high school students that fosters and measures science learning within alternate reality games about saving Earth's ecosystems. Players work together to solve scientific challenges using a broad range of tools including a centralized web-based gaming site and social networking tools, along with handheld smart-phones, and an avatar-based massively multiplayer online environment (MMO). EdGE at TERC joins with GameGurus, high school teachers and assessment specialists to develop Leveling Up. The game requires players to contribute to a scientific knowledge building community; and players rate each other's contributions for their value to the communities' learning and decision-making in solving the challenge. Designers also work with high-school teachers to develop bridge activities that leverage science learning in games for use in formal education. Overall, the project goal is to understand the potential of the gaming environment as a direct intervention and as a catalyst to transform and measure high school STEM learning. The research on Leveling Up compares the science learning measured within social digital games to class-based assessments of similar content and skills and explains the results using data from design documents, participant observations, surveys, interviews and student work. Formative research and iterative design with a cohort of with 15 testbed classes (grades 10-12) result in a set of assessments that have been validated in terms of scientific constructs and a set of common equivalent curriculum and assessments for implementation studies. In the third year of the project, researchers study 12 treatment classes and 3 control classes to compare students' advancement in the game to their gains on classroom assessments. In addition, half of the testbed classes use the classroom bridge activities and half do not, yielding samples of 180 students for each treatment and 90 students for the control sample. Researchers use multilevel models to examine the impact of the Leveling Up game play and bridge activities on high-school students' science knowledge. Independent evaluators (ILI) validate the interpretation of findings from the formative and implementation research. Leveling Up is a fundamental first step for the STEM education field to understand how the pervasive social media emerging in today's society, including the phenomena of social digital gaming, can be leveraged to create exciting and productive STEM learning environments for the future. These technologies and knowledge building processes are critical for building a workforce of tomorrow that is scientifically, technologically, and data literate and also embody the inquiry and collaboration skills to contribute to productive and informed decisions about Earth's ecosystems and other important scientific and societal issues of our times. The project, Leveling Up, results in an ongoing STEM gaming environment for the public as well as a model for high school STEM assessment that may be used in other social digital games. Finally, Leveling Up also contributes a model for activities that bridge scientific inquiry occurring in social digital games with skills and content taught in high school STEM classes.