Collaborative Research: Developing a Framework to better engage students in STEM via Game Design

亚利桑那州立大学和匹兹堡大学将实施一个名为“开发一个框架，通过游戏设计更好地吸引学生参与STEM”的项目，重点是通过土木工程和建筑课程的游戏设计方法进行主动学习。该框架不仅是模块化和可扩展的，适合各种内容领域，而且还将作为一种评估学生学习的方法，在课堂上使用的障碍最小。它将为STEM教师提供一种相对简单的方法，在课堂上实施主动学习，而不是通过游戏来教学，该项目将要求学生将课程内容应用于自己的游戏设计，从而说明他们对课程内容的掌握程度。为此，研究人员将采用三种游戏设计执行方法，并在课程内部和课程之间比较这些方法。方法包括：(1)要求学生重新设计经典棋盘游戏以反映课程内容；(2)修改现有的教育游戏以更好地反映课程内容；(3)创造一款具有学生自主学习目标的新游戏。主题将包括，但不限于，挖掘和基础，结构系统，工业生态，能源使用，排放，资源稀缺，以及环境政策和资源消耗相关因素的影响。所有这些问题都对公共安全、健康和福利产生重大影响。通过推广游戏设计框架及其对学生学习和留存的影响，发行和营销学生创造的游戏作为教育资源，容易被各种机构的教师采用，并通过在K-12的推广工作中分享游戏，从而提高对土木工程和建筑的兴趣，将产生更广泛的影响。游戏和基于游戏的学习已经作为一种主动学习策略在许多教室中使用。它们是有据可查的方法，通过课程材料吸引和激励学生，以提高学生的学习成果。研究人员发现，玩游戏和设计游戏很容易让学生提升布鲁姆分类法的认知维度，从单纯的理解提升到反思、创造和评估。他们的目标是发现该框架的实施是否能提高学生的参与度、社区意识、元认知和对STEM的保留。需要研究的研究问题是：(1)作为一种课程工具，游戏设计是否能够支持学生的参与度，加强社区意识，提高元认知，并增加留在工程领域的意愿？(2)对于特定的学生水平或课程，这种方法的原则和特点是什么？(3)广泛可转移性和可扩展性的有效实践是什么？利用观察、调查、学生作业评估等形成性评估的结果，调查人员将不断完善构成其框架的三种方法，以记录和传播成功的实践，为土木工程和建筑领域的其他教师提供变革性的课程材料。

Arizona State University and the University of Pittsburgh will implement a project entitled "Developing a Framework to better engage students in STEM via Game Design," focused on active learning through game design approaches for civil engineering and construction courses. The framework will be not only modular and scalable, fitting into a variety of content areas, but will also serve as a method of assessing student learning with minimal barriers to classroom use. It will offer STEM instructors a relatively easy way to implement active learning in the classroom, and rather than teaching through game play, the project will require students to apply course content to the design of their own games, in turn illustrating their mastery of course content. To do this, the investigators will employ three approaches for game design implementation, and compare these approaches within and across courses. The approaches include: (1) asking students to re-purpose classic board games to reflect course content, (2) modifying existing educational games to better reflect course content, and (3) creating a new game with student-developed learning objectives. Topics will include, but are not limited to, excavations and foundations, structural systems, industrial ecology, energy use, emissions, resource scarcity, and implications of environmental policies and factors related to resource consumption. All of these topics have significant implications for public safety, health and welfare. Additional broader impacts will be achieved through promoting the game design framework and its effects on student learning and retention, publishing and marketing student-created games as education resources that are easily adoptable by faculty at various institutions, and by sharing the games in K-12 outreach efforts, thereby promoting interest in civil engineering and construction.Games and game-based learning have been used in many classrooms as an active learning strategy. They are well-documented methods to engage and motivate students through course material in order to improve student learning outcomes. The investigators have found that following game play with game design easily moves students up the cognitive dimensions of Bloom's taxonomy, from merely understanding to reflection, creation, and evaluation. They will aim to discover if implementation of this framework promotes increased student engagement, sense of community, metacognition, and retention in STEM. The research questions to be studied are: (1) As a curricular tool, does game design support student engagement, strengthen a sense of community, improve metacognition, and increase intention to remain in engineering? (2) What are the principles and characteristics of this approach that make it successful for a given student level or program? (3) What are effective practices for widespread transferability and scalability? Using the outcomes of formative assessments such as observations, surveys, evaluations of student work, etc., investigators will continuously refine the three approaches that make up their framework to document and disseminate successful practices, providing transformative curricular materials to other instructors in civil engineering and construction.