13 Fallacies: A Card Game to Promote Critical Thinking in At-Risk College Students Julia Gressick, Joel Langston
Fostering undergraduates’ critical thinking is a ubiquitous goal across disciplines (e.g. Gellin, 2003). How best to support the development of these skills has been a topic of debate. In this study, we investigated the design and effectiveness of a card-based game focused on student understanding of common fallacies. 13 Fallacies is designed with the intention to improve the quality of student reasoning by engaging them in exploration of common fallacies in thinking and associated social negotiation. There is strong theoretical support for 13 Fallacies to yield positive learning outcomes. Using a design-based research approach, we have completed an iterative design phase, play testing phase and have collected data on student learning outcomes as a result of classroom implementation of 13 Fallacies. Results indicate that 13 Fallacies improved student understanding of common fallacies in thinking.
Sick Kitty - Toward Promoting Deductive Reasoning through an Embodied Medical Diagnosis Game Rachel Harsley, Nick Green, Mehrdad Alizadeh, Aashish Tandon, Anushri Prabhu
In this paper, we introduce Sick Kitty, a multimodal deductive logic game for primary school children. Sick Kitty situates students as experts with the task of disease diagnosis. They are equipped with a mix of simulated medical tools and a lively stuffed kitty as patient. Sick Kitty is an untraditional method to teach reasoning in classrooms. The main contribution of this work is the design of the multi-modal logic game that promotes scientific reasoning and inquiry. We expect that Sick Kitty will promote the development of deductive reasoning ability for students.
A New Model for Producing and Deploying Learning Games Justin Leites
A new publisher of educational games uses an innovative model for producing and deploying a large number of ambitious learning games for grades 4-9. The model produces games suitable for outside-the-classroom use, with a focus on how best to achieve high levels of voluntary engagement. Key features of the model include a studio system inspired by practices from art galleries and Montessori pedagogy; agile/iterative development; students participating as active participants in the design process; extensive use of “explore, build and share” game mechanics; virtual worlds tying together dozens of games from different designers; and extensive integration of a large virtual library as part of one of those worlds. Early feedback is promising, including higher than expected levels of teacher and parent engagement. Many schools are initially anxious about students sharing user-generated content with each other, and seek best practices for deploying games that enable such sharing.
