Face-to-Face Collaboration, Online Forums, and Physics Reasoning Around a Digital Game in the Classroom

• In Event: 33.080 - Poster Session 6
  In Poster Session: 33.080-2 - Learning Science Through Games, Simulations, and Technologies in Diverse Environments

Abstract

Digital learning games show promise for engaging students with rigorous content and shaping their ideas about the world. Student interactions with digital learning games is more complex, however, than simple pre-post assessments can reveal. Further research must be undertaken to ascertain the effects of social interactions on formal reasoning while engaging with digital learning environments. We observed five levels of physics reasoning across two distinct contexts – face-to-face collaboration and online forum postings. Students were three times more likely to use formal physics reasoning in online forum interactions than they were in face-to-face collaborations. Continued research should explore the impact of different interaction contexts, goals encouraged by their structures, and the influence of teachers on shaping student reasoning, reflection, and discourse.

Authors

• Grant Van Eaton, Teach For America, Inc.

• Douglas Clark, Vanderbilt University

• Blaine Elizabeth Smith, University of Miami