Epistemic Games: Model for Designing Democratic and Media Education Simulations

• In Event: 18.072 - Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: 18.072-5 - Global Perspectives on Humanities Instruction and Access

Abstract

This paper presents the design process and initial results from the development and pilot testing of Persuade Communications. Persuade, a Virtual Internship simulation, utilizes the concepts of epistemic frames and communities of practice as models for learning in media and democratic education. Persuade places students in the roles of interns at a strategic communications firm who are hired to develop a media campaign on a fictitious state level vote ban fracking. This design-based research project utilized a team of contributors for the design and pilot of the project. Findings include tensions between design principles of epistemic frames with alignment to curriculum frameworks, and between in-game designed scaffolding with soft scaffolding of teacher, and a discussion of resulting changes to the simulation.

Author

• Jeremy D. Stoddard, College of William and Mary