Matthew W. Easterday

Toward a Framework for the Analysis and Design of Educational Games

We describe and illustrate the beginnings of a general framework for the design and analysis of educational games. Our students have used it to analyze existing educational games and to create prototype educational games. The framework is built on existing components: a method for precisely specifying educational objectives, a framework for relating a game’s mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics, and principles for instructional design grounded in empirical research in the learning sciences. The power of the framework comes from the components themselves, as well as from considering these components in concert and making connections between them. The framework coordinates the many levels at which an educational game must succeed in order to be effective. We illustrate the framework by using it to analyze Zombie Division and to generate some redesign ideas for this game.

DanceAlong: supporting positive social exchange and exercise for the elderly through dance

The elderly face serious social, environmental, and physical constraints that impact their well-being. Some of the most serious of these are shrinking social connections, limitations in building new relationships, and diminished health. To address these issues, we have designed an augmented dancing environment that allows elders to select dance sequences from well-known movies and dance along with them. The goal of DanceAlong is twofold: (1) to provide entertainment and exercise for each individual user and (2) to promote social engagement within the group. We deployed DanceAlong in a cultural celebration at a senior community center and conducted evaluations. In this paper, we present the design process of DanceAlong, evaluations of DanceAlong, and design guidelines for creating similar interactive systems for the elderly.

Critiki: A Scaffolded Approach to Gathering Design Feedback from Paid Crowdworkers

Feedback is important to the creative process, but not everyone has a personal crowd of individuals they can turn to for high-quality feedback. We introduce and evaluate Critiki, a novel system for gathering design critiques on crowdfunding project pages from paid crowdworkers. Stemming from previous research on crowdfunding project creators and their need for early-stage design feedback, we design and build a working system which fits the need of this population: rapid and inexpensive feedback. To solve issues with critique quality we describe a scaffolding technique designed to assist crowdworkers in writing high-quality critiques. We evaluate Critiki with two field deployments: 1) A randomized controlled experiment with 450 crowdworkers to evaluate the efficacy of the scaffolding technique and 2) A user study with 31 crowdfunding project creators to determine usability and user satisfaction. We contribute to research on Creativity and Cognition by demonstrating a working creativity support system, empirically evaluating the system, and describing how scaffolding approaches can be designed for other crowdsourced tasks

Computer supported novice group critique

Groups of novice critiquers can sometimes provide feedback of the same quality as a single expert. Unfortunately, we do not know how to create systems for novice group critique in design education. We tested whether 4 principles: write-first scripts, critique prompts, interactive critiquing & formative framing, allow us to create systems that combine the advantages of face-to-face and computer-mediated critique. We collected observations and 48 interviews with 12 undergraduate design students who used a computer supported group critique system over 5 critique sessions, analyzed using grounded theory. We found that: (a) the write-first script helped overcome initial learning costs; (b) the interactive critique features created a dual-channel critique that increased the number of critiquers, duration of critique and interactivity; and (c) the system produced a greater volume of useful critique and promoted reciprocity among critiquers. The study provides improved principles for developing computer supported novice group critique systems in design.

The logic of design research

ABSTRACT Since the first descriptions of design research (DR), there have been calls to better define it to increase its rigour. Yet five uncertainties remain: (1) the processes for conducting DR, (2) how DR differs from other forms of research, (3) how DR differs from design, (4) the products of DR, and (5) why DR can answer certain research questions more effectively than other methodologies. To resolve these uncertainties, we define educational design research as a meta-methodology conducted by education researchers to create practical interventions and theoretical design models through a design process of focusing, understanding, defining, conceiving, building, testing, and presenting, that recursively nests other research processes to iteratively search for empirical solutions to practical problems of human learning. By better articulating the logic of DR, researchers can more effectively craft, communicate, replicate, and teach DR as a useful and defensible research methodology.

Agile Research Studios: Orchestrating Communities of Practice to Advance Research Training

Undergraduate research experiences enhance learning and professional development, but providing effective and scalable research training is often limited by practical implementation and orchestration challenges. This paper introduces Agile Research Studios (ARS)--a socio-technical system that expands research training opportunities by supporting research communities of practice without increasing faculty mentoring resources. ARS integrates and advances professional best practices and organizational designs, principles for forming effective learning communities, and design of social technologies to overcome the orchestration challenge of one faculty researcher mentoring 20 or more students. We present the results of a two-year pilot of the Design, Technology, and Research (DTR) program, which used the ARS model to improve the quality of learning, produce research outcomes, and lower the barrier to participation while increasing the number of students who receive authentic research training.

Using Tutors to Improve Educational Games: A Cognitive Game for Policy Argument

How might we balance assistance and penalties to intelligent tutors and educational games that increase learning and interest? We created two versions of an educational game for learning policy argumentation called Policy World. The game (only) version provided minimal feedback and penalized students for errors whereas the game+tutor version provided additional step-level teaching feedback and immediate error correction. A total of 105 university students played either the game or game+tutor version of Policy World in a randomized, controlled, two-group, between-subjects experiment, during which we measured students’ problem-solving abilities, interest in the game, self-reported competence, and pre- and posttest performance. The game+tutor version increased learning of policy analysis skills and self-reported competence. A path analysis supported the claim that greater assistance helped students to learn analysis better, which increased their feelings of competence, which increased their interest in the game. Log data of student behavior showed that debate performance improved only for students who had sufficiently mastered analysis. This study shows that we can design interesting and effective games to teach policy argumentation and how increasing tutoring and reducing penalties in educational games can increase learning without sacrificing interest.

Designing Crowdcritique Systems for Formative Feedback

Intelligent tutors based on expert systems often struggle to provide formative feedback on complex, ill-defined problems where answers are unknown. Hybrid crowdsourcing systems that combine the intelligence of multiple novices in face-to-face settings might provide an alternate approach for providing intelligent formative feedback. The purpose of this study was to develop empirically grounded design principles for crowdcritique systems that provide intelligent formative feedback on complex, ill-defined problems. In this design research project, we iteratively developed and tested a crowdcritique system through 3 studies of 43 novice problem solvers in 3 formal and informal learning environments. We collected observations, interviews, and surveys and used a grounded theory approach to develop and test socio-technical design principles for crowdcritique systems. The project found that to provide formative feedback on ill-defined problems, crowdcritique systems should provide a combination of technical features including: quick invite tools; formative framing; a public, near-synchronous social media interface; critique scaffolds; “like” system; community hashtags; analysis tools and “to do” lists; along with social practices including: prep/write-first/write-last script and critique training. Such a system creates a dual-channel conversation that increases the volume of quality critique by grounding comments, scaffolding and recording critique, and reducing production blocking. Such a design provides the benefits of both face-to-face critique and computer-support in both formal and informal learning environments while reducing the orchestration burden on instructors.

Infrastructuring Distributed Studio Networks: A Case Study and Design Principles

Design educators have long used studio-based learning environments to create communities of learners to support authentic learning in design. Online social media platforms have enabled the creation of distributed studio networks (DSNs) that link studio-based learning environments into expanded communities of practice and potential networked improvement communities. As learning scientists, we do not adequately understand how to infrastructure learning and resource sharing across distributed studios. In this ethnography of the infrastructure of Design for America, a DSN, we analyzed data from interviews, online communication, and field observations as the organization grew its network of university design studios. We found that Design for America managers faced challenges of providing support and resources to address wide variation in needs across studios. Lacking an existing comprehensive network collaboration platform, managers created a proto-infrastructure to distribute support across studios. By studying their iterative adoption of communication and collaboration tools and organizational routines, we define a unique set of design principles to infrastructure DSNs: (a) surfacing local progress and problems, (b) affective crowding, (c) solution mapping, and (d) help routing. Assembling constellations of tools and designing platforms based on these principles could support learning in and the improvement of DSNs across domains.

Journalism as Model for Civic and Information Literacies.

ABSTRACT Journalism can serve as a generative disciplinary context for developing civic and information literacies needed to meaningfully participate in an increasingly networked and mediated public sphere. Using interviews with journalists, we developed a cognitive task analysis model, identifying an iterative sequence of production and domain-specific cognitive constructs of journalism expertise. We diagnose common discrepancies between professional practices and typical youth journalism pedagogies, and offer suggestions for teaching participatory politics and civic literacies through journalism.