"Extra Innings”: Using Serious Gaming and the Science of Baseball to Teach Science and Mathematics

 描述（由申请人提供）：由于科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）的快速发展，美国一直处于科学，健康和生物医学领域创新和技术发展的前沿。然而，这些持续的进步正处于危险之中，因为全国范围内训练有素的STEM工作者越来越短缺。虽然对STEM素养的公众和STEM劳动力的需求不断增长，但教育系统并没有跟上STEM成就和持久性的步伐，美国学生在数学和科学方面一直排名接近高度发达国家的底部。通过中学接触学生对于让他们走上STEM职业道路至关重要。为了鼓励对STEM主题的兴趣，并最终吸引更多的年轻人，特别是多样化的年轻人，从事STEM职业，年轻人需要学习机会，通过建立他们当前的兴趣并提供需要特定背景的科学探究的真实案例和经验来提供动力。该项目通过创建Extra Innings来满足这些关键需求，Extra Innings是一款严肃的游戏应用程序，它集成了经过验证的STEM课程的概念并对其进行了补充，该课程是为中学生开发的亚利桑那响尾蛇棒球科学，符合共同核心标准，国家科学教育标准和下一代科学标准。这个游戏提供的STEM课程将利用人们对体育的广泛兴趣，为处于关键年龄的年轻学生扩大STEM学习机会，并在他们决定对STEM感兴趣时激励他们。该项目提议开发一个基于移动的和桌面应用程序的严肃游戏，其中包含一系列迷你游戏，每个游戏都围绕棒球和科学概念提供体验式学习。例如，学生通过测试他们在棒球出现在屏幕上时的反应时间来了解生理学以及大脑，眼睛和神经系统之间的联系。这是由一个额外的“在球场”应用程序功能，旨在使用，而在球场或在现场广播，集成了现场内容，如统计和投球速度，让用户了解如何科学和数学概念可以用来改变结果在真实的世界环境。第一阶段的任务包括进行形成性研究，以完善游戏概念，包括焦点小组，快速原型和迭代测试，开发内容集成的关键概念，完成三个游戏会话的故事板，开发应用程序背后的架构和编程原型游戏的一部分，包括三个小游戏会话，并进行可用性评估，以评估吸引力，易用性，以及游戏的实用性，并衡量围绕原型内容的学习成果的增加。第二阶段将完成游戏开发，进行严格的评估，并建立商业模式，其中包括购买和赞助的美国职业棒球大联盟及其特许经营权，就像原来的亲自课程的情况。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Due to the rapid advances in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), the United States has been at the forefront of innovation and technology development in the science, health, and biomedical fields. However, these continuing advances are in jeopardy as there is a growing national shortage of trained STEM workers. While the need for a STEM literate public and STEM workforce grows the education system has not been kept pace with STEM achievement and persistence and U.S. students consistently rank near the bottom of highly developed countries in mathematics and science. Reaching students by middle school is critical for setting them on the pathway to a STEM career. To encourage interest in STEM topics and ultimately draw more young people, particularly diverse youth, to STEM careers youth need learning opportunities that provide motivation by building on their current interests and providing real-word examples and experiences requiring context specific scientific inquiry. This project addresses these critical needs by creating Extra Innings, a serious gaming app that integrates the concepts of and complements a proven STEM curriculum, the Arizona Diamondbacks Science of Baseball, developed for use with middle school students, that is aligned with the Common Core standards, National Science Education Standards, and Next Generation Science Standards. This game-delivered STEM curriculum will leverage the widespread interest in sports to expand STEM learning opportunities for and motivate young students at a critical age when they are making decisions about their interest in STEM. The project is proposing to develop a mobile and desktop app-based serious game with a series of mini-games, each providing experiential learning around a baseball and science concept. For example, students learn about physiology and the connection between the brain, eyes, and nervous system through testing their reaction time at fielding a baseball as the ball appears on the screen. This is supplemented by an additional "At the Ballpark" app feature, intended to be used while at the ballpark or during a liv broadcast, that integrates live content such as statistics and pitch speed to allow the user to learn about how the science and math concepts can be used to change outcomes in a real world environment. Phase I tasks include conducting formative research to refine the game concept, including focus groups, rapid prototyping, and iterative testing, developing key concepts for content integration, completing storyboards for three game sessions, developing the architecture behind the app and programming a portion of the prototype game including three mini-game sessions, and conducting a usability evaluation to evaluate the appeal, ease of use, and utility of the game, and to measure increase in learning outcomes around the prototype content. Phase II will complete game development, conduct a rigorous evaluation, and establish the commercial model which includes purchase and sponsorship by Major League Baseball and its franchises, as was the case with the original in-person curriculum.