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Games

Games

Epistemic games are computer games that can help players learn to think like engineers, urban planners, journalists, lawyers, and other innovative professionals, giving them the tools they need for a changing world.

In epistemic games, players see what it is like to live in the world of adults. They learn ways of thinking that matter in the digital age, and have a chance to imagine the kind of person they might someday become.

Land Science

Land Science extends the game Urban Science. In Land Science, players become interns at the office of a fictitious urban and regional planning firm. Players weigh the trade-offs of land use decisions in ecologically-sensitive areas, interact with virtual stakeholders and use iPlan, a custom-designed Geographic Information System, to develop land use plans for local and national sites.

Nephrotex

In Nephrotex, undergraduate engineering students role-play as professional engineers-in-training in order to develop the skills, knowledge, identity and values of engineers.

Urban Science

In Urban Science, players engage in the professional practices of urban planning and learn how to become ecological thinkers in the process. They work together to tackle the urban issues that face their city, using iPlan, a Geographic Information System (GIS) tool that helps them develop a comprehensive plan for their community.

Journalism.net

In Journalism.net, players become reporters working for an online newsmagazine. Working with professional journalists and interviewing community leaders, these young reporters learn about how journalists think about news and its important relationship to the community.

Science.net

In Science.net, our latest and best-developed Journalism.net game, players become science reporters. Working with professional journalists and interviewing local scientists, these young reporters learn about how journalists think about scientific issues and their important relationship to the community

Digital Zoo

In Digital Zoo, players become biomechanical engineers. Using Sodaconstructor, a sophisticated physics simulation, they design wire-frame character prototypes for an upcoming animated film. Players meet with clients and engineering experts, and present their work, developing real-world skills while learning concepts in science and engineering.

The Pandora Project

In The Pandora Project, players become high-powered negotiators, deciding the fate of a real medical controversy: the ethics of transplanting organs from animals into humans. Along the way, they learn about biology, international relations, and mediation.

Escher’s World

In Escher’s World, players become graphic artists and create an exhibit of mathematical art in the style of M.C. Escher. Based on an architectural design studio, the game helps players learn to think like designers about geometry and graphic art.

Recent posts for Games

Urban Science as part of Mass Audubon’s Conservation Leadership Program

9 Jul, 2010 with 0 comments so far

Our partners at the Massachusetts Audubon Society are including Urban Science as part of their Conservation Leadership Program August 16-20 for youths entering grades 9-12. To learn more about the free program and to sign up, click here.

Dispatches from the front lines

7 May, 2010 with 1 comment so far

Epistemic games, by design, are very difficult. The concepts, the terminology, decisions, the challenges are usually completely foreign to our young players. We can ask young people to do work that would likely be impossible for most of them to do by themselves precisely because the games provide careful scaffolding. A primary source of that scaffolding are in-game mentors who interact with the players via chat as they play.

Working as a mentor in an epistemic game is also very difficult.

Continue reading »

Professional Practice Simulations for Engaging, Educating, and Assessing Undergraduate Engineers

29 Apr, 2010 with 0 comments so far

Chesler, N., Bagley, E., & Shaffer, D.W. (2010) Professional Practice Simulations for Engaging, Educating, and Assessing Undergraduate Engineers. Paper to be presented at the International Conference of Learning Sciences Engineering Workshop, Chicago, IL.

http://epistemicgames.org/eg/wp-content/uploads/engineering-workshop.pdf

EAGER Proposal for Research in Measurement and Modeling: Dynamic STEM Assessment through Epistemic Network Analysis

6 Apr, 2010 with 0 comments so far

In this project, we lay the ground work for developing a potentially transformational approach to STEM assessment in the 21st century.
Today, work that requires only basic skills flows overseas where labor is cheaper, and complex and meaningful STEM thinking means linking skills and knowledge in the context of real-world problems and situations. Problem solving in real STEM practices is characterized by knowledge and skills, to be sure, but also by the way those skills are connected to each other, and to the values and ways of making decisions in STEM fields.

We propose, then, the development of a new method of STEM assessment—called epistemic network analysis (ENA) that focuses not on whether students master specific scientific facts, math skills, or engineering concepts, but on whether and how students link the skills, knowledge, identity, values, and epistemology of a STEM practice into a coherent way of thinking about complex STEM problems.
We describe ENA as “potentially transformational” because it is in its early stages, and involves a radically different and interdisciplinary approach to the problems of STEM assessment. In this proposal we link prior work on an innovative theory of STEM thinking with the mathematical and conceptual tools of social network analysis to create a new conceptual and statistical approach to the measurement of STEM thinking and STEM learning.

We have been developing ENA as an assessment tool in the context of a particular theory of learning (the epistemic frame hypothesis) that applies to a specific kind of STEM learning computer game (epistemic games). However, we want to emphasize ENA is an approach to assessment that could be used in any situation of complex STEM thinking where the connections between things being learned are more important than isolated pieces themselves.

Intellectual Merit
In this proposal, we link work across several domains—including learning theory, psychometrics, and sociology—to develop a new assessment technique designed to measure the impact of technology-based STEM learning environments. This emerging research is, by its nature, uncertain. However, the collective work of the project team—including joint work on the pilot phases of this project—suggests that this research will produce conceptual, theoretical, and methodological results with the potential for far-reaching and long-term impacts on the theory and practice of network analysis, visualization, and their applications to STEM learning.

Broader Impact
The development of the cognitive model proposed here will help educators in a wide variety of fields analyze and improve STEM education by providing a means to dynamically assess the development of complex STEM thinking. The tools we develop will contribute to the field of network analysis, and our development process will enhance the skills and career trajectories of at least five young investigators.