Gamifying History

我们与中学教师一起制作了一个教育视频游戏，以改善对KS3-4学生的工业革命教学。它被设计成一个有课程计划、活动和家庭作业支持的课堂学习模块。我们想把它作为一个低成本的应用程序提供给全国所有的学校。如果成功，我们将开发其他科目/时期的游戏。更广泛地说，我们希望改变游戏在课堂教学中的使用方式。现在很少有学生知道工业革命的关键作用。这主要是因为教师和学生发现数据密集型文献过于具有挑战性和枯燥。学生们还努力综合和分析多种因素及其相互影响。这个问题已经在课堂讨论和书面评估中被观察到，学生倾向于描述孤立的事件，而不是提供对原因和后果的整体理解。目标:KS3-4-students;老师。这款游戏是由中学教师和大学讲师共同设计的，基于剑桥大学和其他地方进行的最先进的研究。它通过允许学生在沙盒环境中探索因果关系来培养独立学习。与独立的游戏化活动不同，它的特点是一系列相互关联的课程、挑战和多媒体资源，让学生参与到持续的学习过程中。这种紧密结合的方法确保了游戏在教学上的合理性，并与学习目标保持一致。我们利用剑桥大学对职业变化（Shaw-Taylor and Wrigley 2014; Litvine and Shaw-Taylor 2022）、人口增长（Wrigley 1997,2004）、自然禀赋的作用（Wrigley 2010）和历史交通网络（Bogart et al. 2021; Litvine et al. 2023）进行的最先进的历史研究，记录和解释了英国的经济增长。该项目还汇集了由申请人在剑桥领导的一系列其他研究项目中开发的数字地理空间人文科学的新方法，以及索尔福德大学游戏开发的实践和理论参与。我们也会直接借鉴申请人的研究成果。游戏中使用的核心数据是我们在剑桥人口与社会结构历史研究小组（Cambridge Group）过去5年的工作成果。最后，游戏提供了一种基于生活水平和人口增长的长期演变的工业革命方法。

We built an educational video game with secondary teachers to improve the teaching of the Industrial Revolution to KS3-4 students. It was designed as an in-class learning module with lesson plans, activities, and homework support. We want to offer it as an app at a low cost to all schools in the country. If successful, we will develop games for other subjects/periods. More broadly, we hope to change the way games are used in classroom teaching.Fewer students are now taught the pivotal role of the Industrial Revolution. This is mostly because teachers and students find the data-intensive literature too challenging and dry. Students also struggle to synthesise and analyse multiple factors and their influence on each other. This problem has been observed in both classroom discussions and written assessments, where students tend to describe isolated events rather than provide a holistic understanding of the causes and consequences. Targets: KS3-4-students; teachers.The game was jointly designed by secondary schoolteachers and university lecturers and is based on state-of-the-art research conducted at Cambridge and elsewhere. It fosters independent learning by allowing students to explore causal relationships within a sandbox environment. Unlike standalone gamified activities, it features a series of interconnected lessons, challenges, and multimedia resources that engage students in a continuous learning journey. This cohesive approach ensures that the game remains pedagogically sound and aligns with learning objectives.We draw on state-of-the-art historical research produced at Cambridge on occupational change (Shaw-Taylor and Wrigley 2014; Litvine and Shaw-Taylor 2022), demographic growth (Wrigley 1997, 2004), the role of natural endowments (Wrigley 2010), and historical transport networks (Bogart et al. 2021; Litvine et al. 2023), documenting and explaining economic growth in Britain. This project also brings together new methods in digital geospatial humanities developed in a series of other research projects led by the applicant at Cambridge, and a practical and theoretical engagement with game development from the University of Salford.We also draw directly on the research carried out by the applicant. The core of the data used for the game is the result of our work (jointly with others) over the last five years at the Cambridge Group for the History of Population & Social Structure. Finally, the game offers an approach to the Industrial Revolution based on the long-term evolution of living standards and population growth.