Reading Reflection W3

I enjoyed reading the articles assigned to us this week and will touch on some of the points that caught my attention.

Science instruction will undoubtedly benefit students more if the learning setting is more directly connected to technology and societal issues, which the article Relating Narrative, Inquiry, and Inscriptions: by Sasha et al. Supports. Despite persistent calls for meaningful scientific inquiry in the classroom, they increasingly run counter to the pressures teachers face to prepare students for high-stakes tests that focus on realistic recall. Changes in pedagogy necessitate new tools, such as curricula, instructional tools, assessments, and professional development, created specifically for educators. These factors include public accountability for educators, time limits, and resource limitations. Perhaps this reminds me of when I was working in Saudi public schools. There was a shortage of educational tools and professional development at that time. In addition, many calls were met with reluctance by the older teachers.

Game-based learning is an attractive and motivating approach for the learner. Looking at the generations of today and generations to come, we see how much they care about everything related to technology, especially with regard to games. We can realize the importance of integrating such an approach into the educational process. In comparison to the non-gaming approach, the gaming technique was more effective at improving students' knowledge and more motivating, as mentioned in "Digital Game-Based Learning in high school computer science education: Impact on educational effectiveness and student motivation."

The researchers proposed user-centered game design as a framework for creating and assessing serious games and used user-centered design approaches in their study, User-Centered Game Design: Evaluating Online Multiplayer Role-Playing Games for Second Language Acquisition. They also proposed an alternative design framework for serious game developers, one that incorporates social interactions, learning objectives, and gaming features. They aimed to create serious games that would benefit the player's education. The design focus that the user is evaluated on depends on the reason they desire to utilize the games and how it affects the player.

References

Barab, S. A., Sadler, T. D., Heiselt, C., Hickey, D., & Zuiker, S. (2007). Relating narrative, inquiry, and inscriptions: Supporting consequential play. Journal of science education and technology, 16(1), 59-82.

Papastergiou, M. (2009). Digital game-based learning in high school computer science education: Impact on educational effectiveness and student motivation. Computers & education, 52(1), 1-12.

Rankin, Y. A., McNeal, M., Shute, M. W., & Gooch, B. (2008, August). User centered game design: evaluating massive multiplayer online role playing games for second language acquisition. In Proceedings of the 2008 ACM SIGGRAPH symposium on Video games (pp. 43-49).