Presenter: Leanna Prater, District Technology Resource Teacher, Fayette County Public Schools The Can You Create a Game Challenge is a framework to help educators bridge the gap between a student’s need to play, create and explore new digital tools while addressing state mandated standards for assessment. When carefully written, the Can You Create a Game Challenge uses a combination of game development/ designer constraints, player goals, narrative structures of a game and a student plan sheet for teachers to intentionally plan for and assess specific learning targets within student created digital games. In addition, students demonstrate understanding of skills, content knowledge, computation thinking, problem solving and creativity. Recent results of teacher creation and use of Can You Create a Game Challenge, the framework and classroom applications will be shared, as well as the 5E inquiry based instructional design model which can be use with existing games in the classroom.

1. Leanna Prater
Fayette County Public Schools
Lexington, KY

2. Our Students

3. Occupational
Activities of
Children
Playing
Thinking
Learning
Seymour Papert
Papert, S. (1980). Teaching children thinking. In R. Taylor (Ed.), The computer in school: Tutor, tool, tutee (pp. 161-176). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

4. 21st Century
Skills Needed
• think critically
• solve problems creatively
• innovate
• collaborate
• communicate
Computational Thinking is a skill everyone needs
for life and work in the digital age

6. • A Story, characters, setting
• Player Goals
• Problems to solve
• Scaffolds
• Score
• Animation
• Rewards
• Ability to keeping trying
• Play with a friend or a team

7. • A Story, characters, setting
• Player Goals
• Problems to solve
• Scaffolds
• Interactive
• Score
• Animation
• Rewards
• Ability to keeping trying
• Play with a friend or a team
Narrative
Writing
Calculating
Create or Build
a Model
Performance

9. Previous Work:
Children as Game Designers
Yasmin Kafai
Idit Harel

10. Design Needed to Be….
• Replicable
• Fit within time constraints
• Cross –curricular
• Closely tied to standards
• Sustainable

11. Framework:
Based on Theory
Constructivism
Piaget
Constructionism
Papert
Social Constructivism
Vygotsky

12. Create a Challenge Using
Substitution Model
Assess standard with
extended response
Assess standard by
asking students to
calculate a math
problem
Assess standard by
asking students to
create a model
Games have narrative
structure, characters,
setting, plots
Games have score
Characters move
Games could involve a
digital model that is
interactive, player goal

14. Constraints
Brainstorm and Planning
Testing and Debugging (real audience)
Reflection

15. CAN YOU CREATE A SCRATCH GAME?
Can you make a game with the following conditions?
• Correctly use a geosphere and a hydrosphere.
• Explain with words or pictures how the geosphere and hydrosphere
interact.
• Have at least one background change
• Character must move within the program
• Player can interact with the game.
5-ESS2-1 Develop a model using an example to describe ways the geosphere, biosphere,
hydrosphere, and/or atmosphere interact.

16. Brainstorm your game or story:
• Think about the systems you will use.
• Select backgrounds and sprites to match your
systems.
• How will players interact with your program?
• What is the goal of the game?

17. Create your program on the computer.
• Test it out, does it work?
• Have a friend play. Did it work for them? If not, why?
• Go back and fix your program and try again.

18. Think: How could you have improved your game?

20. The Process

21. Authentic Instruction
• Task – Student Centered, real-world relevant
• Process- Sustained investigation, multiple
interpretation/outcomes
• Environment- Learning takes place in
collaborative groups, over time
• Teacher - coach/facilitator
• Product - designed for a real audience
• Assessment- authentic, integrated, leads to life-
long learning.
Callison & Lamb, 2004; Herrington, Oliver, & Reeves, 2003; Lombardi, 2007; Maina, 2004;
Renzulli, Gentry, & Reis, 2004; Means & Olson, 1994

22. Total time with students:
50-55 minute class period
30-35 days a year
3 elementary STEM lab teachers
3 suburban elementary schools

23. • Various Access to Technology
• Teachers reported all students
came with some game play
experience
Diverse Student Populations
School 1: Houses Deaf/Hard Hearing Cluster
School 2: over 30 different nationalities, 16% ESL
School 3: 67% students receive free/reduced lunch

24. Instructional Design
http://www.bscs.org/bscs-5e-instructional-modelBiological Sciences Curriculum Study

25. The Work

26. Examples

27. Assessment

28. Assessment of Learning Targets
Score
0 = No Evidence
1 = some evidence
2 = strong evidenceName:___________________________ Date of Target Check_______
NOTES
Did the student correctly write decimals to the thousandths place? 0 1 2
Did the student correctly use the “>” symbol to compare decimals to
the thousandths place?
0 1 2
Did the student correctly use the “<” symbol to
compare decimals to the thousandths place?
0 1 2
Did the student correctly use the “=” symbol to compare decimals to
the thousandths place?
0 1 2
Did the student correctly read the decimals in the game they
created?
0 1 2
Assessment of Game Design
Player could not win game by simply guessing 0 1 2
Game incorporated “>“, “<“, and “=“ symbols 0 1 2
Goals and rules of the game were clear 0 1 2
Graphics were appealing and added to the game 0 1 2
Information in the game was accurate 0 1 2
A peer successfully played the game 0 1 2

29. Project Rubric
Scale: 0 = not attempted
1= attempted
2= met requirements
3= exceeds requirements
Requirements Points Earned
Use a control to begin the game
Use a code to create a secret word
Create a code to allow a player to hear each letter in your
secret word or phrase
Use “Ask and Answer” to make the game interactive with a
player.
Total Points

30. What We’re Learning

32. Leveling the Playing Field for Kids

33. Playtesting is important.

34. Many kids felt like a “game designer”.
“Game designers mess up sometimes,
and I messed up a couple of times.”
“It was our idea completely. So we
made it the way we wanted to.”
“I was making something I could play.”
“I did feel like a game designer in a
way because you got to make lots
of choices on how you wanted it to
be.”

35. Those who didn’t…...
“Game designers make games for years.”
“It is not going to get popular or heard of.”
“Felt like regular 4th grade.”
“It was an assignment, not a choice.”

36. Shared Knowledge.

37. Role of the teacher

38. Developing Computational Thinking
Skills, Vocabulary and Content

39. Teacher needs for new technologies,
including game based learning.

40. Intellectual Partnerships
“I’ve never felt more
valued as an educator.”

41. Building a Community

42. New York, NY
Cambridge, MA

43. Resources
Blogs.fcps.net/createagame
Leanna Prater
Fayette County Schools
Dr. Joan Mazur
University of KY