Aroutis Foster

The Play Curricular Activity Reflection Discussion Model for Game-Based Learning

Abstract This article elucidates the process of game-based learning in classrooms through the use of the Play Curricular activity Reflection Discussion (PCaRD) model. A mixed-methods study was conducted at a high school to implement three games with the PCaRD model in a year-long elective course. Data sources included interviews and observations for understanding the process of students’ content knowledge and motivation to learn. Pre to post assessments were administered for measuring achievement gains and motivational changes. Interpretive analysis indicated that PCaRD aided student learning, motivation to learn, and identification with the content. We found mixed quantitative results for student knowledge gain with only statistical significant gains for mathematics. We also found that PCaRD provided teachers with an adaptive structure for integrating games in an existing and new curriculum. PCaRD has implications for research, teaching, and design of games for learning.

Integrating the Visual Arts Back into the Classroom with Mobile Applications: Teaching beyond the “ Click and View ” Approach

Abstract Teachers can use mobile applications to integrate the visual arts back into the classroom, but how? This article generates recommendations for selecting and using well-designed mobile applications in the visual arts beyond a “click and view ” approach. Using quantitative content analysis, the results show the extent to which a sample of 16 mobile applications promoted physiological features (e.g., interactive touch), psychological learning principles (post, share comment/art work), pedagogical voice (e.g., social constructivist teaching), socio-cultural dimensions (artist ’s background), aesthetic understanding (e.g., line, color) and creative self-efficacy (e.g., the belief in the ability to make a new painting). We propose to address this imbalance through the pedagogical model Play, Curricular activities, Reflection, Discussion (PCARD).

Assessing Learning Games for School Content: The TPACK-PCaRD Framework and Methodology

Game-based learning is varied and so are the assessments and methods used to determine what is learned with games. The author used two studies conducted in different settings to illustrate the role of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) and play, curricular activity, reflection, and discussion (PCaRD) in game-based learning. In the first project in an after-school study in a computer lab, 26 middle school students played a game for 7 weeks. Assessments were created using a game analysis based on TPACK to examine learning and motivation TPACK allowed for the creation of assessments that focused on the content in a game and highlight the genre effect on pedagogy in gameplay. In the second study conducted with 21 high school learners, TPACK played the same role; however, PCaRD was used to integrate the game into a classroom. The integration process included the previously developed assessments for learning and motivation. Whereas TPACK provides a lens to analyze digital games for pedagogy and content, PCaRD provides a pedagogical model for integrating games into learning settings. This has implications for designers of games, teachers using games, and researchers studying games for learning.

Towards balancing learner autonomy and pedagogical process in educational games

We present the preliminary work in the TAEMILE project, which aims to co-regulate the learning process in educational games by automatically balancing learners autonomy and the pedagogical processes intended by educators. We focus on our design rationale and the initial results from our user study.

Examining Students’ Cultural Identity and Player Styles Through Avatar Drawings in a Game-Based Classroom

This chapter reports on the seemingly incongruous use of 2D media-avatar drawings and 3D media-math-based digital gameplay. As part of a larger mixed methods study, we examined students’ cultural identity, player styles, and tacit perceptions of schooling while inventing their own avatars, which are analyzed as symbols representing who they are and who they wish to be as gameplayers enrolled in a yearlong game-based course. Interviews, class discussions, observations, drawings, and short questionnaires were used to analyze issues of identity that emerged during the drawing process and the ways that the pedagogical activity of making the drawings affected student engagement in the game-based learning process. An emergent typology of drawings is reported on: race-based, where the student explicitly affiliated himself with his race and cultural, and race-less avatar drawings, where the student does not associate himself with race and cultural. This typology is explained in terms of two representative students. Finally, we compare the findings with extant theories of student identity and arts-based research as well as generate implications for an integrated theory of academic, possible, and virtual selves that emphasize the dynamic and culturally responsive needs of learners in educational settings that use gameplaying as a learning modality.

Virtual Learning Environments for Promoting Self Transformation: Iterative Design and Implementation of Philadelphia Land Science

The objective of this design-based research study was to develop, implement and refine Philadelphia Land Science (PLS), an interactive web-based experience designed to support learning framed as identity exploration over time, leading to identity change around environmental science and urban planning careers. PLS was developed using Projective Reflection (PR) and tested with high school students at a science museum in Philadelphia as part of a larger on-going study funded by the National Science Foundation (Foster 2014). Projective Reflection (PR) frames learning as identity exploration and change to inform the design of games and game-based learning curricula to facilitate intentional change in learners’ (a) knowledge, (b) interest and valuing, (c) self-organization and self-control, and d) self-perceptions and self-definitions in academic domains/careers. Change is tracked from a learner’s initial current self, through exploration of possible selves (measured repeatedly), to a learner’s new self at a desired specific end-point (Shah et al. 2017). PLS was constructed through the modification of the virtual internship Land Science, and capitalized on the strengths of its design features, which were informed by the Epistemic Frames Theory (Shaffer 2006). The paper introduces two iterations of PLS and concludes with implications for design and implementation of games for facilitating identity change. Implications are discussed for advancing research on learning and identity in immersive virtual environments.

Revitalizing Peale's Museum as a digital interactive learning environment

This paper raises awareness about Charles Willson Peales late 18th and early 19th century Philadelphia Museum of Art and Science and describes a project that reimagines it as a 21st century digital interactive learning environment for cultural heritage and Science Technology Engineering Art Mathematics (STEAM) learning. The project seeks to establish 3 sites of engagement and discuses ongoing research towards automating experience management in interactive learning environments (TAEMILE) a necessary step in operationalizing the Peale Museums K-12 site of engagement.