Recent posts for Games
The right kind of telling: an analysis of feedback and learning in a journalism epistemic game
Hatfield, D. (2011) The right kind of telling: an Analysis of feedback and learning in a journalism epistemic game. University of Wisconsin-Madison.
http://epistemicgames.org/eg/wp-content/uploads/hatfield_dissertation_print_final.pdf
Stop Talking and Type: Mentoring in a Virtual and Face-to-Face Environmental Education Environment
Bagley, Elizabeth A. S. (2011) Stop Talking and Type: Mentoring in a Virtual and Face-to-Face Environmental Education Environment. University of Wisconsin-Madison.
http://epistemicgames.org/eg/wp-content/uploads/Bagley-Dissertation-FINAL.pdf
Use of Professional Practice Simulation in a First-Year Introduction Engineering Course
Chesler, N., D’Angelo, C., Arastoopour, G., and Shaffer, D.W. (2011). Use of Professional Practice Simulation in a First-Year Introduction Engineering Course. Paper presented at the American Society for Engineering Education Conference (ASEE), Vancouver, BC.
http://epistemicgames.org/eg/wp-content/uploads/Chesler_ASEE_2011.pdf
Girls Sweep Global Google Science Fair
Google holds an annual competition to give talented high school students around the world a chance to showcase their ideas about science. NPR reports that Google has just announced their 2011 science fair winners.
The three winners, beating out over 10,000 students in the competition, were all young women. Girls can do science and engineering at the highest level, but we know that somewhere along the way they get turned off (see Goodman’s Final Report of the Women’s Experiences in College Engineering).That’s one of the reasons we are excited about Nephrotex, an epistemic game that offers something different from the typical engineering education curriculum.
We are already seeing results that women who participate in Nephrotex understand what engineering is and have motivation to persist after completing the virtual internship.
STEM in Elementary Schools
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports about K-5 schools embracing STEM programs and how engineering in elementary schools is becoming a trend:
[There are] 40 STEM programs and schools across Minnesota. The STEM initiatives are spreading nationwide, spurred by an increased emphasis on science and math and pressure to fill a job market void with future engineers and science-savvy students.
This is one of the reasons why we built our virtual internship for freshmen undergraduate engineers. Go Nephrotex!
But of course, there are always critics…
The Center for American Progress cautioned that STEM programs aren’t all producing higher test scores.
Okay… but if you want to measure students’ critical thinking progression within STEM curriculum, standardized tests are not the way to go.
