Serious games as didactic tool for teaching programing Jože Rugelj Matej Zapušek, Irena Lancovska Šerbec University of Ljubljana Faculty of Education Chair of Didactics of Computer Science

 Games can provide motivation for learning, thus increasing the chance that the desired learning outcomes will be achieved.  Motivation is needed by students to focus attention, but this is not enough. What makes computer game educational?  They must have well defined learning goals and have to promote development of important strategies and skills to increase cognitive and intellectual abilities of learners.  Important elements contributing to educational values of games are sensual stimuli, fantasy, challenge and curiosity (desire to know or learn).

 A lot of educational computer games designed according to behavioristic theory of learning: tutorials, which are basically forms of programmed instruction.  one correct answer, immediate response  positive response (happy sound, positive character reaction that stimulate positive emotions), instance of action-reaction pair enforced.  with wrong answer the connection has to be weaken and reaction is provided in a form of negative stimuli.  Trivia games, quizzes, point and click games…all of them have drill and practice concept build in a very core of the game design and are broadly used in game based learning.

 Constructivist learning emphasizes discovery and inquiry learning arguing that students should be placed in a model of abstracted reality (modeled within computer game) where they construct their own knowledge.  Serious games can provide support for knowledge construction rather than declaring the knowledge in behavioristic fashion.  Instructional content can be blurred within a game.  Player is expected to elicit desirable behaviours based on emotional and cognitive reactions that result from interaction with a game.

 Seven pedagogical goals for constructivist game design: 1. to provide an experience with the knowledge- construction process 2. to provide experiences encouraging appreciation of multiple perspectives 3. to embed learning in realistic and relevant contexts 4. to encourage ownership in the learning process 5. to embed learning in social experience 6. to encourage the use of multiple modes of representation 7. to encourage self-awareness of the knowledge construction process

 Students play the game and have fun, forgetting about the “learning” part of the experience (even though they are constantly presented with new concepts which they have to adapt in order to be successful in a game.)  Students need motivation to focus on what needs to be learned but for any quality learning to occur this is not enough.

Features of game for effective learning  Motivation games motivating for players, important to understand the sources of motivation to provide a foundation for learning.  The role of failure the price of failure is lowered, seen as a way to learn the underlying pattern; these features of failure in games allow players to take risks that might be too costly.  Competition and collaboration gamers enjoy competition with other players in games, but may not see competition as pleasurable and motivating in school; competition is seen by gamers as social, as much about gaming as winning and losing.

 Interactivity player doesn't just passively consume knowledge but has control over content  Customisation based on learning styles and providing multiple routes to success  Strong identities games offer players identities that trigger a deep investment on the part of the player and which are clearly associated with the functions, skills and goals one has to carry out in the virtual world.  Well-sequenced problems in connectionist approaches to learning, it is argued that sequencing is crucial for effective learning in complex domains

 A pleasant level of frustration adjusting challenges in such a way that a range of players can experience the game as challenging but do-able  A cycle of expertise repeated cycles of extended practice and tests of mastery  ‘Deep’ and ‘fair’ game must be challenging but set up in a way that leads to success; i.e. gameplay elements should be initially simple and easy to learn and become more complex the more the player comes to master them.

Learning programming  Programming is difficult to learn (Mendes&Gomes, 2007) because:  teaching is not personalized,  teachers’ strategies don’t support all students’ learning styles,  the teaching of dynamic concepts through static materials,  teachers are more concentrated on teaching a programming language and its syntactic details,  students use incorrect study methods,  students don’t work hard enough to acquire programming competences,

 students don’t know how to solve problems,  many students don’t have enough mathematical and logical knowledge,  students lack specific programming expertise,  programming demands a high level of abstraction,  programming learning requires skills like abstraction, generalization, transfer and critical thinking,  programming languages have a very complex syntax,  students don’t have motivation,  students have to learn programming in a difficult period of their life.

Difficult concepts in programming Lahtinen, Ala-Mutka, Järvinen, 2007

Difficult concepts in programing Milne in Rowe, 2002

Project SEGAN (LLP)

SEGAN - Community of Practice about Serious Games  It produces reports on the design, development, and evaluation of Serious Games and their use in specific contexts.  Network supported by virtual tools and face to face events.  SEGAN results also include:  development of a repository with products and projects relatedto SeriousGames  setting up of small-scale, local events on the design and development of SeriousGames  setting up of a series of annual European conferences and SummerSchools

Serious games student projects  Design of serious games is suitable for teacher education.  Students at the Faculty of Education, UL, design and implement serious games as a part of their study activities.  The profile of graduates from “CS in education”  Different learning goals for students:  analysis of all crucial elements,  identification of learning goals by teachers / curriculum,  definition of a didactical approach,  specification technical requirements,  implementation,  testing and evaluation. 16SEGAN project

 Serious games were designed and implemented by:  graduates as diploma work  by groups of four undergraduate students as project activity in a course Use of ICT in education in the 4 th year of CS teachers study program  The results of project work are twofold:  students summarize interdisciplinary knowledge at the end of their study  games, produced in this process, are excellent didactic material for pupils SEGAN project17

Web portal for serious games at FE UL 18 hrast.pef.uni-lj.si/igre

Design process  Specification of “didactical problem”  Analysis phase curriculum, time, resources, technology, …  Design content, “story”, graphical, feedback,  Implementation  Testing and evaluation SEGAN project19

World of Variables  Diploma thesis  The goal of the game is to organize the logistics for delivery of goods to some planets in the universe.  Learning goals:  variables (types, declarations,…)  assignments  Target audience: primary school  Semantic model, independent of syntax  Understanding of concepts 20SEGAN project

Learning goals  Pupil after playing a game  understands the idea of variable,  knows variable has a name,  is aquainted with with types of variables,  is aware of the fact that different types are not compatible,  knows that different types require different amount of memory,  is familiar with assignement statements,  is aware of meaning of both “sides” of assignment,  knows what is the value of variable after assignment,  can predict the values of variables after executing part of a program (with several assignements).

Game 1: Cleaning up the mess in the lab

Game 2: Carriers

Game 3: Exam for raw material carriers

New didactic game: functions

Conclusions  Game can be very powerful instructional technology.  Its use can be justified by all relevant learning theories.  But it can only be efficient, when it is properly integrated into learning / teaching  Very challenging topic in computer science teacher education!