Educational games share certain challenges with all serious games. A successful educational game needs to be both a good game and educational. Obvious, but many teams focus on one aspect and include either the game developer or educator as an after-thought. The result is either games that don’t teach or games that children won’t play. How do you determine at what level of mathematics (or any subject) a student should begin? How do you know if students learned something and how do you prove that your game was the cause? The educational component must target, teach, test and track. Is a game where the novelty effect never wears off an oxymoron? These questions will be answered, based on both the research literature, as well as our own data, from the first two years of research on using games to raise mathematics scores of students attending schools on American Indian reservations.

1. Making Educational Games
That Add Up
AnnMaria De Mars, Ph.D.
7 Generation Games

2. It happened in a moment of weakness …
Hey! Let’s apply for
this award to go to
Washington, D.C.
and analyze the
National Indian
Education Study

3. Grade 8 Math Scores by Mother’s Education

4. Used multiple regression analysis
 Culture score was significant but NOTE !! – it is
coded so that lower scores mean less cultural
activities, .e.g. “Do you speak your language at
home?” 1= Yes 2 =No
 Mother’s education was significant
 School climate was significant
 Student absenteeism was significant

5. Not willing to choose between culture
and academic achievement
We submitted a proposal to USDA to develop a computer game to teach language, culture and
mathematics

6. Questions to answer
What makes a game “educational” ?
What makes something a game ?
How do you select the right game for
your students?

7. How do you know
 Level of mathematics (or
any subject) where a
student should begin?
 If students learned
something?
 If your game was the
cause?

8. Problem
Bad Math Bad Game
46

9. Is he really learning?
What you don’t know about
educational games can
hurt you

10. Educational game design
 Common Core aligned
 Research-based
 Scaffolding
 Individualized instruction
 Data Driven
 Test
 Track

11. Educational game effect
High degree of time on task
Shows improvement from
pretest to posttest
Even better if the
improvement is higher than
the control group

12. 
IS IT REALLY COMMON CORE ALIGNED ?

13. Why Common Core?
What students are learning in a
game is the same as what they
are learning in the classroom,
Game strengthens and
supplements the work of
teachers.

14. Focus on
student needs

15. Common Core Helps
 What math standards describe what
your students need to learn next?
 “Understand a fraction as 1/b when a
whole is divided into b parts”
 “Add fractions with like denominators”

16. The Goldilocks Effect :
For both mathematics and gaming,
the best level of difficulty is just
right, not too hard so as to be
frustrated and not so easy as to be
bored.

17. You have been warned
Grade level is far less obvious
than it seems

18. How we do it
Start with the state standards
Write math challenge, instructional
activities and assessment

19. STANDARD
Express whole numbers as fractions, and
recognize fractions that are equivalent to whole
numbers. Examples: Express 3 in the form 3 = 3/1;
recognize that 6/1 = 6

20. What fraction of the cart is full when you
have 6 baskets?

21. For an explanation of how to solve this problem,
click the EXPLAIN IT button below
What’s this doing here?

23. Effective teachers
 “Just-in-time” individualized feedback.
 Zone of Proximal Development
 Scaffolding

24. Three ways to solve the problem
When you add one basket to the cart, the fraction you have filled is

25. Ensure help is available when needed

26. Feedback is timely, specific and
learner-controlled

27. Highly effective teachers of disadvantaged
students…
teach specific procedures and facts
in hands-on or “real-life” activities

28. Game Example
 Build a model movie: Teaches concept

29. 
Good education

30. Game Example
 Build a model movie: Teaches concept
 Good for LEP because language is
 Repeated
 In context
 Visual cues

31. Software can be
 Bad education and a bad game
 Good education but a bad game
 Good game but bad education
 Good game and good education for some
students

32. 
Bad Education
Bad game

33. Contrast this game …

34. Problems
Non-verbal doesn’t teach math terms,
or any language
It’s unclear who is winning or even
which player you are (bad game)

35. Not so good

36. Feedback is not specific

37. Good education
Common core
aligned
Direct instruction
of English
Good graphics

38. Good for learning English
Not much of a
game
Explanation is both
written AND spoken

39. Good game ?: Example 2

40. Good points
 Common Core aligned with mathematics
 Good sound
 Good graphics
 Game testers were engaged

41. Data Driven

42. Multi-method
 Continuous quantitative data collection
 Duration, frequency, interval of sessions
 Item-level performance data

43. Multi-method
 Qualitative data
 Observation
 Interviews

44. No number of interns = actual children
Did you think,
“Hey, I’d like to
ride on that deer?

45. Good games
“Achievement principle ... there are intrinsic
rewards from the beginning, customized to
each learner’s level, effort and growing
mastery and signaling the learner’s ongoing
achievements.”

46. In other words, our second game was …
Game was too hard to play and students “died” so
often they did not get to many math problems
“Too many damn snakes!”

47. Good games
 “Learners can take risks in a
space where real-world
consequences are lowered.”
“If you have 8 people sick
and you need 3 herbs for
each person to make
medicine, how many do
you need?”

48. Why do the same students who give up when math is too
hard play games where every level gets more difficult?

49. What I learned from a fourth-grader
“I don’t pay
attention in math.”

50. Let the education
stand on its own
We couldn’t disagree more!

51. AND …..
CHARACTERS STORY

52. What I really learned
Adding the juice
Music
Sound effects

53. Fail in interesting ways

54. Easter eggs
Lots and lots of Easter eggs

55. EDUCATIONAL Easter eggs
Trip on a rock and a video clip
plays with the legend of Standing
Rock

56. How can a game keep being new?
 2-D to 3-D and back again
 First person to third person
 Location
 Time period
 Characters
 Games within games

57. We are experiencing technical
difficulties
Hardware and software requirements

58. How individuality ruins my life …
If everyone was the same, it
would just be SO much easier

59. Problems we run into
1. Wrong hardware – only runs on Mac, Windows, iPad,
Android
2. Wrong software – won’t run on Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8,
Mac OS X Lion etc.

60. If you already know this next point, feel free to sleep

61. You have been warned ..
There are a lot of older computers out there
Windows XP is 12 years old and 13% of U.S. computers still run
it
About 20% of Macs run Snow Leopard (Mac OS 10.6), which is
five years old

62. Students are more likely to have older
operating systems
What gaming companies know ….
Children are more likely to have
older computers because they often
get mom’s or dad’s old one

63. No, there is NOT an app for that
Because of the
processing power
required, iPad and
other tablet games
tend to be simpler –
in graphics, in
design

64. Problems we run into
3. Requires Internet connection that is blocked by school
security
4. Requires faster Internet connection than is available

65. Security requirements vary
NEVER plan a lesson using a game
you haven’t tested in that school
Test in the school before you plan
to use in your classroom
Have a back-up plan

66. Sum up
Educational Research
+ Data
+ Game design
+ Technology

67. OR