Ek Ming Tan

The Role of Gender in Mobile Game-Based Learning

This paper investigates whether there are gender differences in gameplay time and learning outcomes in a social studies mobile game-based curriculum. Seventeen boys and 24 girls from a ninth-grade class in Singapore used a mobile learning game Statecraft X to enact governorship in the game world. The data suggest that boys spent significantly more time playing Statecraft X than girls. However, there were no significant gender differences in their scores in an essay question assessing their learning about governorship in terms of criteria of relevance of content, perspective, and personal voice. There was also no significant correlation between gameplay time and relevance of content, perspective, and personal voice scores. Thus, higher engagement in gameplay alone does not necessarily lead to higher-order learning outcomes. This paper discusses the factors giving rise to these results.

Statecraft X: Enacting Citizenship Education Using a Mobile Learning Game Played on Apple iPhones

In this paper, we report on a mobile learning game, Statecraft X, designed and developed to enact a program for citizenship education undertaken by 15-year-old students. The game is played on Apple iPhones. Located in the Social Studies curriculum, the game represents one component of a broader learning environment that includes in-class dialogic activity to facilitate student sense making and identity construction. After briefly reviewing prior work related to mobile learning and mobile games for learning, we describe game play with Statecraft X. Our first field test of the game indicates that game usability is high. Students also enjoy the game play experience and learning with the game.

Spatializing Social Practices in Mobile Game-Based Learning

The objectives of this paper are to explore the characteristics of patterns of participation in social and game-play spaces outside the classroom of 10 fifteen-year-olds engaging in mobile game-based learning, and to determine whether there are gender differences in their use of social and game-play spaces. The data indicate some evidence of gender differences in their use. The boys in the study tended to engage in mobile game-based learning more than girls in game-play spaces. The girls tended to use the social space more than the boys and were especially more active in their use of the in-game chat system.

Learning Chemistry Performatively: Epistemological and Pedagogical Bases of Design-for-Learning with Computer and Video Games

Typical textbooks in chemistry present the field as a fait accompli represented by a body of “proven” facts. In the teaching and learning of chemistry, students have little, if any, agency to engage in scientific inquiry and to construct their personal understanding of the field. An emphasis on predetermined “knowledge” and the execution of laboratory experiments designed mainly to confirm predetermined “findings” can lead students to a grave misunderstanding of the nature of science. In this chapter, we argue that the learning of chemistry must be engaged in performatively if it is to be authentic. Using the multiplayer chemistry game “Legends of Alkhimia” as a context, we articulate the epistemological and pedagogical bases for the design of a game-based learning curriculum to help students imbibe the thinking, values, and dispositions of professional chemists. Drawing on Bourdieu’s construct of habitus, we seek to foster students’ capacity for practical reason as they become themselves via engagement in the scientific and inquiry-oriented practice of doing chemistry, rather than just learning about it. We explain how our design-for-learning seeks to develop epistemic reflexivity and professional identity, in relation to professional chemists, through performance, play, and dialog.

Becoming Citizens Through Game-Based Learning: A Values-Driven, Process Approach to Citizenship Education

Abstract In this paper, we share a model of game-based learning for use in the context of classroom learning in school. The model is based on the dialectic interaction between game play and dialogic engagement with peers and teacher on one hand and a developmental trajectory of competence-through-performance on the other. It is instantiated in the context of a learning program related to citizenship education using the computer game Space Station Leonis . We argue for the importance of values in all learning, based upon a theory of becoming citizens that is founded on process philosophy. We relate values to dispositions, as articulated manifestations of values, and describe how the Leonis learning program helps to achieve dispositional shifts befitting citizenship education in a globalized and multi-cultural world. Keywords: becoming, citizenship education, dispositions, game-based learning, identity, process philosophy, Space Station Leonis , values. __________________________________________________________________________

Issues and Challenges of Enacting Game-Based Learning in Schools

In this article, we postulate the issues and challenges when we bring game-based learning from an informal setting to a formal school setting. The understanding will contribute to the design of game-based learning programs in the mainstream classrooms. We highlight the issues and challenges by re-situating a successful game-based learning program designed to foster problem solving and argumentation—Mad City Mystery—from an outdoor learning setting to a school setting. We first delineate the conditions and mechanisms through which Mad City Mystery was made possible as a plausible twenty-first-century learning experience. Through the analysis, we unpack the enablers and critical conditions that made Mad City Mystery a plausible twenty-first-century learning experience. From there, we examine the plausibility and applicability of these critical conditions in the classroom context. In conclusion, we articulate eight critical challenges/enablers that sustain game-based learning programs like Mad City Mystery in the classroom. Among the challenges, pedagogical, technological, and logistical issues are Grade Two challenges—issues that can be solved when research and financial resources are in place and are more likely to be solved. Curricular, performative, social, and temporal issues are Grade One challenges—which are more resilient to changes even when external resources pour in.

Developing a Sense of Identity as a Governor Within a Mobile Learning Community

Using a quasi-experimental design, this paper examines 36 Grade 9 students in a Singapore high school developed their sense of identity as a governor within a mobile learning community. In the traditional social studies classroom, students are taught how governors should govern their towns or countries in an ideal situation. Statecraft X, a mobile-phone game-based curriculum supporting the learning of principles of governance, however, allowed students to have a first-hand experience of being a governor within a mobile learning community, to assume the identity of a governor and to communicate with each other as governors. The server-based game design of Statecraft X ensures that there is a common experience within groups of players as well as between groups. It was hypothesized that civic learning mediated through a mobile game would help students develop a stronger sense of identity as a governor than those who learnt in traditional social studies classrooms. The final student assignment of this study was the presentation of a speech, which enacted students’ understanding of principles of governance, based on their game experience, and in-class and outside-classroom activities. Data sources included surveys and written speeches. Analysis of the surveys showed how students developed their identity as governors and adopted civic values. The analysis of the written speeches indicated that students had enacted their sense of identity as governors as shown by their scores in relevance of proposed policies, perspective, and personal voice.