A serious game's design and development process for helping teachers to understand how inquiry-based learning may be enacted for teaching science.

1. SIMAULA: A GAMIFIED SIMULATION FOR TEACHING
INQUIRY-BASED LEARNING
PETROS LAMERAS, SENIOR LECTURER, SENIOR RESEARCHER IN SERIOUS GAMES,
COVENTRY UNIVERSITY, FHEA, VISITING SCIENTIST MIT EDUCATION ARCADE LAB.
GAMES AND SIMULATION ENHANCED LEARNING CONFERENCE 3 NOVEMBER 2017

2. OUTLINE
• Setting the context
• Game Design
• Game Demo / Playtesting
• Game Design Play

3. SETTING THE CONTEXT
• In 2012 SimAULA was firstly conceived as conceptual idea for a training
prototype game for engaging and motivating teachers to learn about best ways
to teach and manage a science classroom. (First Phase as part of an EU LLP
project)
• In 2014 the development continued to encompass a more research-informed
participatory process to understand problems and challenges that science
teachers experience with teaching science in real-classroom environments.
(Second Phase as part of EU-FP 7 project).
• In 2016 and when we had a first prototype ready for testing we initiated a
collaboration with MIT’s Education Arcade lab to play-test Simaula with 20
science teachers.

4. IDENTIFYING THE CHALLENGES IN
PROFESSIONAL LEARNING FOR SCIENCE
TEACHERS
• Professional learning is often perceived as irrelevant and
ineffective to teachers’ needs.
• Science content changes rapidly and teachers need to
update their knowledge and understanding continuously
by providing the mechanisms through which content may
be updated rapidly.
• Professional learning should be primarily oriented
towards technical skills but should offer opportunities for
adopting pedagogically-rich strategies for scientific
inquiry.
• Professional learning should be closely connected with
teachers’ actual practice including an emulation of the
environment that teaching is taking place.
• Professional learning should integrate subject matter
knowledge with pedagogical knowledge.
• Science knowledge is better accommodated and
assimilated through inquiry and practice.

5. WHY PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
DEVELOPMENT FOR INQUIRY-BASED
LEARNING USING A SERIOUS GAME?
• Giving teachers opportunities to experience
science inquiry themselves in a simulated
learning environment where they can decide
and adapt their approaches to inquiry.
• Focus on specific essential features of inquiry
learning designed for science teaching and
learning that tend to be less well-used and well-
understood by teachers.
• Reflective thinking, especially when a specific in-
game inquiry activity is taking place for building
awareness as teacher-practitioner-reseacher.
• The length of CPD programmes vary and
sometimes is difficult to follow. A serious game
may be used anytime anywhere allowing
teachers to experiment with inquiry in their own
time and pace.
• Enabling teachers to tailor their inquiry teaching
based on student’s emotions, preferences and
level of engagement visualised during game-

6. WHAT ARE THE
CHARACTERISTICS OF INQUIRY?
• Inquiry learning is a multifaceted activity and involves posing
questions, carrying out investigations, analysing data,
communicating findings and reflecting on learning in light of
evidence (NRC, 1996).
• Students learn science in a way that reflects how science works
(NRC, 1996)
• […] it also refers to authentic ways for investigating the natural
world, explaining and justifying concepts based on evidence
that can be transferred to a real world situation (Hofstein and
Lunetta, 2002).

7. SIMAULA GAME DESIGN:
OVERARCHING FRAMEWORK
Lameras et al., 2014

8. SIMAULA GAME DESIGN: ASSOCIATING
LEARNING OUTCOMES WITH GAME GOALS
AND TOPIC
Learning outcomes Game Goals
Science
topic
Orienting and
asking questions
1. To understand how an inquiry question
may be posed to students
2. To understand how to guide students in
forming their own questions.
3. To become aware of how an inquiry
question and subsequent follow-up
questions and and probes lead to a
classroom discussion
1. Ask 1 inquiry-based question
2. Ask 3 inquiry-based questions in a
row
3. Get 5 great ratings in a row
4. Get all students in asking
meaningful inquiry questions
5. Start 3 classroom discussions
CO2 - Free
emission house
Hypothesis
generation and
design
1. To understand how a hypothesis is
being posed to students
2. To understand how to guide
students in formulating hypothesis
by guiding them via a list.
3. 3. Students make their own
hypothesis based on evidence
1. Ask 3 inquiry questions in a row
2. Get all students to become
inquisitive / curious
3. Get 2 students think about a
hypothesis
4. Geta a students to test a
hypothesis by an artifact
The
electromagnetic
spectrum

9. GAME PROCESS FOR LEVEL 1 - PATH
FOR WIN AND LOSE CONDITION

10. OVERARCHING GAME
MECHANIC: NESTED DIALOGUES

11. MECHANICS, DYNAMICS AND
AESTHETICS (MDA)
Game
elements
Game rules
responding to inquiry
questions & refining
through feedback
Feeling of
fascination
about inquiry
when stage
Feeling of
failure, re-
attempt and
adjustment
Feeling of
achievement
when students are
adopting inquiry
learning
Categories of
description
(Referential
aspect)
dimensions of
variation
(structural
aspect)
Outcome
Space
(linking
referential with
structural
Game mechanics Dynamics Aesthetics
Conceptions
of inquiry learning
using Simaula

15. NESTED DIALOGUES IN GAME
VISUALISATION

16. PROBING FORMATIVE FEEDBACK

17. INTERACTION WITH STUDENT - ATTENTION
AND COMPREHENSION MECHANICS

18. CONTEXTUAL FEEDBACK TO POOR
QUESTIONS

19. ACCESSING IN-GAME DATA FOR TRACKING
PROGRESS

20. TO INSTIGATE THE PRINCIPLES OF
PROJECTS, PLAY, RESEARCH AND GROUP
WORK.

21. Let’s play some game design

22. GAME CARD GOALS
• What game mechanics, motivation, victory conditions and social
mechanics would you design for creating a game for training teachers
in inquiry-based learning
Or
• What game mechanics, motivation, victory conditions and social
mechanics would you design for creating a game for
entrepreneurship?
Or
• What game mechanics, motivation, victory conditions and social
mechanics would you design for creating your own game?