Preparing Teachers to Engage Rural and Indigenous Students in Computational Thinking Through Game Design

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Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to share strategies that promote cultural pedagogy through game design. The primary goal of this study is to improve middle school students’ spatial visualization and computational thinking skills through robotics and computer gaming, respectively. While several teachers were familiar with robotics, none had previously worked with game design, and none had used students’ culture to motivate students to learn. This paper details how teachers impacted student learning in the gaming portion of the study.

The study is grounded in theories of cultural relevance and technology design principles. Culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) creates opportunities for students to learn in a third space where ethnic ways of knowing are valued alongside dominant canons of knowledge (Ladson Billings, 1995; Lipka et al., 2005). Cultural artifacts, symbols, and attributes were incorporated into Scalable Game Design curriculum using the AgentSheetsTM tool (Repenning, Webb, & Ioannidou, 2010) to reflect cultural considerations and design features (i.e., color, style, shape, music, etc.). Our assumption is coupling culture with gaming increases students’ motivation and interest and provides them with pathways and access to STEM careers (Bracey, 2013).

Twelve teachers from eight schools in Wyoming chose to participate in the pilot year of a three-year study called Visualization Basics. They enrolled in an introductory course to learn how to teach AgentSheetsTM in spring 2014. We observed their practices during before- and afterschool clubs in May 2014. The study was guided by the following research questions:
1. What strategies taught during game design developed students’ cultural identity and computational thinking?
2. How did teachers’ efficacy and outcome beliefs on cultural relevance change during the study?
3. How did teachers’ beliefs about computational thinking change during the study?

Quantitative measures included collecting and analyzing pre-post survey data on culturally responsive teacher efficacy and outcomes (Siwatu, 2007) and computational thinking (Yadav et al., 2011). Qualitative data sources included teacher work samples, reflective journals, and classroom observations.

Results show Mrs. A, an Arapahoe female, included cultural aspects into game design. Thus, her indigenous students were comfortable embellishing their Frogger game with cultural attributes. Mrs. D, a White female, did not deviate much from the protocol. Likewise, students designed games that had routine features. Mr. P changed the background and conditions of the game to reflect trucks, which were typical in rural towns. The students in his class modeled this use of place. Thus, these teachers’ views of the gaming task most likely influenced their students’ products. Descriptive data on cultural responsiveness reveal teachers’ self-efficacy (M = 79.23, pre-survey; M = 87.33 post-survey) and outcome expectancy (M= 79.60 pre-survey; M = 84.47 post-survey) increased during the study. However, teachers’ CT scores remained stable (M = 3.32, pre-survey; M = 3.35, post-survey), tending toward a maximum of 4.

The results of this study have significant implications for researchers and teachers who work with rural and Tribal students. The results inform the Year 2 study in terms of teacher training, logistics and instruction of Scalable Game Design (Repenning et al., 2010).

Authors

• Jacqueline Leonard, University of Wyoming

• Monica B. Mitchell, MERAssociates

• Toks S. Fashola, Johns Hopkins University

• Tarcia LaSha Hubert, University of Houston