Full-Scale Development: Collaborative Research Advancing Informal STEM Learning Through Scientific Alternate Reality Games

全面发展:杨百翰大学和马里兰大学将与史密森学会、计算机历史博物馆和美国国家航空航天局合作，再加上领先的游戏设计师、教育工作者、科学家和研究人员，将对基于天体生物学、天体物理学、科学和科学领域的深度时间科学的两个大型虚拟现实游戏（arg）的设计和开发进行研究。以及星际空间旅行。该项目将反复设计和测试两种不同类型的arg（封闭式和开放式），以研究这些arg对STEM学习的影响。ARGs将以下一代科学标准（NGSS）为基础，为学习者提供密集、自我驱动和框架式的科学学习，旨在吸引女孩和其他在科学和技术领域历史上代表性不足的群体。每个ARG将由NASA科学家、教育工作者和教育研究人员以及基于游戏的学习专家设计，并将具有高度互动性：让学习者参与现实和虚拟世界的合作调查，收集科学数据，进行数据分析，并提供科学证据，帮助解决基于科学的科学问题，这些问题源于现实世界的问题，将培养学习者。协作、参与式虚拟学习环境中的计算思维技能。结合来自网络和社交媒体分析、玩家访谈、调查和用户生成内容的数据，UXR的研究人员和评估专家将提供基于结果的评估，包括前端、形成性、补救性和总结性评估，将建立最有效地促进非正式STEM学习成果的arg属性。通过比较开放式和封闭式arg， pi将能够评估两种不同的替代现实游戏设计方法的相对优势和劣势。项目团队将测试开放式、用户生成的内容将支持基于探究的学习、点对点学习、终身学习和终身深度学习的假设，而封闭式、叙述丰富的arg将支持STEM知识的特定转移、协作和问题解决。为了确保游戏能够吸引目标受众，项目团队将采用协同设计的方法，在设计过程的每个阶段都征求参与游戏的青少年的创意意见。在与教师、图书馆员、青少年和外部利益相关者密切协商后制定的补充材料和教案将使ARGs作为一种模式在博物馆、教室、图书馆和课外活动中得到广泛和有效的应用。拟议中的arg提供了一个独特的环境来测试学习原则，使玩家能够通过跨媒体跨多个环境进行学习，并测试与大量并发玩家合作的效果。因此，项目应该产生关于如何将学习原则用于新兴学习环境（包括那些可能是众包的学习环境）的见解。该研究基于文献，pi在将ARG设计原则与相关的学习科学研究相结合方面做得很好，提供了一种明确的类型的特殊启示，这将导致新的理解。这种方法对我们教育下一代学生的方式有着深远的影响。将虚拟空间中的问题解决和学习与来自现实世界的经验和数据相结合的能力，可能会极大地改变我们对技术在教育中的作用的理解。

Full-Scale Development: Collaborative Research Advancing Informal STEM Learning and Computational Thinking through Scientific Alternate Reality GamesBrigham Young University and the University of Maryland, in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution, the Computer History Museum, and NASA, plus leading game designers, educators, scientists, and researchers, will conduct research on the design and development of two large-scale Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) based on deep-time science in astrobiology, astrophysics, and interplanetary space travel. The project will iteratively design and test two distinct types of ARGs (closed- and open-ended) to study the effects of these ARGs on STEM learning. The ARGs will be based upon the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), affording learners with intensive, self-driven, and scaffolded scientific learning and will be aimed at attracting girls and other groups historically underrepresented in science and technology. Each ARG will be designed by NASA scientists, educators and education researchers, and game-based learning experts and will be highly interactive: engaging learners in collaborative investigations in real and virtual worlds to collect scientific data, conduct data analysis, and contribute scientific evidence that will help solve scientific questions within a science-based narrative derived from real world problems that will develop learners? computational thinking skills in a collaborative, participatory virtual learning environment. Combining data from web and social media analytics, player interviews, surveys, and user-generated content, researchers, and evaluation experts at UXR who will provide an outcomes-based evaluation, including front-end, formative, remedial, and summative evaluations, will establish the properties of ARGs that most effectively advance informal STEM learning outcomes. By comparing open-ended and closed-ended ARGs, the PIs will be able to assess the relative strengths and weaknesses of two distinct approaches to Alternate Reality Game design. The project team will test the hypothesis that open-ended, user-generated content will support inquiry-based learning, peer-to-peer learning, and life-wide and life-deep learning, while close-ended, narrative-rich ARGs will support specific transfer of STEM knowledge, collaboration, and problem solving. To help ensure that the games appeal to their target audiences, the project team will adopt co-design methods, enlisting the creative input of participating teens at each stage of the design process. Supplementary materials and lesson plans developed in close consultation with teachers, librarians, teens, and external stakeholders will enable the ARGs to be widely and effectively used as a model in museums, classrooms, libraries, and after-school programs. The proposed ARGs represent a unique environment to test learning principles that enable players to bridge their learning through transmedia across multiple contexts and test the effects of collaboration with massive numbers of concurrent players. As a result, the project should yield insights on how learning principles can be adopted and re-appropriated for emerging learning environments, including those that that might be crowd-sourced. The research is well grounded in the literature and the PIs do an excellent job of mapping ARG design principles to the pertinent learning science research, providing a clear sense of the particular affordances of the genre that should lead to new understandings. The approach has profound implications for the way we might teach the next generation of students. The ability to mix problem solving and learning in virtual spaces with experiences and data derived from the physical world could dramatically change how we understand the role of technology in education.