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Don’t reinvent the wheel. Before you
start, check out the University of
Georgia’s Homemade PowerPoint
Games website ( it.coe.uga.edu/wwild/
pptgames), which offers resources,
templates, and tips about how to pull
this off in your classroom. Make it a
project. For game design to be a constructionist activity, it has to be a unit
project. A homemade PowerPoint
game is not a Jeopardy-style review
game. Students should learn the
content while they work on all aspects
of the game. Using a choose-your-own-adventure model rather than a
drill-and-practice approach requires
more rigor on the part of students
and leads to more authentic science
questioning and problem solving.
Limit computer lab time. Creating games
across a longer stretch of time allows
for more feedback and fewer days—
both overall and consecutive—in the
computer lab. When students spend
multiple consecutive days in the lab,
we noticed that “lab fatigue” sets in.
Remember, if it can be done outside
of the computer lab, do it outside of
the computer lab.
Theme matters. Perhaps the most difficult part of designing a content-based
game is tying the theme directly to the
narrative. We’ve seen students spend
too much time creating outlandish
narratives that were unrelated to the
content. We’ve also watched students
create “save the princess” games,
where the players never revisit the
narrative once the students begin to
play the game. Those games become
nothing more than drill-and-practice
exercises after the introductory slides.
Emphasize for your students the
importance of integrating the theme
into the game itself. Students should
follow these steps:
1. Plan the narrative using a graphic
organizer (see page 63 of this
document at 1.usa.gov/14lHZ4K).
2. Write a first draft of questions.
3. Revise and order the questions
(by increasing difficulty) using
the organizer to add context.
We told students to base their narratives on the themes in ChemCom
( lapeer.org/chemcom). For example,
one game focused on the design of
a coin. ChemCom’s materials unit
covered topics such as physical and
chemical properties, redox reactions,
layers of the earth, and factors to con-
sider when mining for resources.
Teach question writing—and answer
writing. Offer question-writing tips and
allow time for revision, editing, and
teacher feedback on narratives and
questions. Also, direct students to use
the game to correct errors. We included
requirements on the number of knowledge, comprehension, and application
questions and made sure students
included corrective feedback in their
games. At first, student game designers merely indicated that the incorrect
answer was wrong. Later, we asked
students to explain why the answer
was wrong. For example, in a question
about Boyd’s Law that required a calculation, players might be informed that
instead of multiplying two variables,
they should have divided them.
By doing this, students begin to
create games that contain authentic
practices and higher-order problem
solving, rather than digital drill-and-practice exercises.
Benefits of Game Design
Although students were generally
not excited about the project when it
was introduced, they enjoyed it once
they got started. We were surprised by
the creativity of some of the students,
especially as many of them were traditionally disengaged and considered
at risk. Often students who in the past
had not been engaged in class came
up with very creative stories that nicely integrated science process skills.
Continued on page 29
