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Tuesday 12th February 2008 9:00 am

Barab and Gresalfi: Examining the Effects of Game-Based Curricula Across the World

Sasha Barab and Melissa Gresalfi, professors in learning sciences at Indiana University, discuss their work scaling a multi-user game-based curricula, Quest Atlantis, in classrooms across the world.

We, as a society, are in the middle of an interesting transition in which teachers and schools are held increasingly accountable for students’ acquisition of particular content but, at the same time, are facing a generation of students who view the curriculum as largely irrelevant to their own lives. In response to this need, we have developed and now wish to systematically investigate the ways that a multi-user game-based curriculum (known as Quest Atlantis) both transforms, and is transformed by, its use in particular classrooms, and how these transformations differ across multiple classrooms across the world. Scaling an innovative curriculum like Quest Atlantis creates an interesting challenge because the accepted practices, classroom norms, inquiry-focus, and curricular content that it promotes are in contrast to much of traditional schooling.  Investigating the scaling of this curriculum will therefore enable us to build a grounded account of both the potential of these technologies for transforming school practices, and the obstacles to their success. A key part of the proposed effort is understanding the ways our design is or is not taken up in different countries, and to what effect.

Through previous funding work, we have designed a technology-rich play space for teachers and students to use in the context of schools. Rather than a traditional curriculum or simply a space for out-of-school play, the space known as Quest Atlantis (QA) uses a 3D multi-user engine, interactive rule sets, and a socially-responsive narrative to immerse children, ages 9-12, in meaningful learning trajectories.  The challenge was to design a virtual environment that has real-world implications that is not a lesson yet fosters learning, is not evangelical yet nurtures a social agenda, and is not simply a game yet remains engaging. Our goal was not to create an isolated system (a fantasy play space) but instead to develop a context for supporting children in developing their own sense of purpose as individuals, as members of their communities, and as knowledgeable citizens of the world. Though QA was designed to be used in classrooms and to support the learning of academic content, its game-based participatory structures, underlying pedagogical assumptions, reliance on new media literacies, and commitment to inspire engaged citizenship together provide a necessary contrast to the foci and practices that currently dominate much of school practice.

This research will shed light on the dynamics of using Quest Atlantis in the context of dramatically different local cultures-an ostensibly necessary perspective in our increasingly globalized society. In addition, understanding use across different sites will also feed back to inform our understanding of the locally diverse culture within the United States, specifically with respect to populations of students who are currently underserved by our education system. By investigating the dynamics of students’ and teachers’ engagement with the system of Quest Atlantis, and how those dynamics are shaped by diverse experiences in radically different cultural spaces, we will gain a more profound understanding of the interrelation between histories of participation and ongoing trajectories of participation. We believe that our previous successes with this curriculum, along with the tools and resources we have developed, uniquely position us to lead the field in scaling an innovative, game-based curriculum, in understanding the challenges and opportunities associated with scaling worldwide, and in understanding the potential impacts of such environments on the culture of schools.

Category: Ecology-of-Games

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