Case Studies in Game-Based Complex Learning

Despite the prevalence of game-based learning (GBL), most applications of GBL focus on teaching routine skills that are easily teachable, drill-able, and testable. Much less work has examined complex cognitive skills such as computational thinking, and even fewer are projects that have demonstrated commercial or critical success with complex learning in game contexts. Yet, recent successes in the games industry have provided examples of success in game-based complex learning. This article represents a series of case studies on those successes. We interviewed game designers Zach Gage and Jack Schlesinger, creators of Good Sudoku, and Zach Barth, creator of Zachtronics games, using reflexive thematic analysis to thematize findings. We additionally conducted a close play of Duolingo following Bizzocchi and Tanenbaum’s adaptation of close reading. Several insights result from these case studies, including the practice of game design as instructional design, the use of constructionist environments, the tensions between formal education and informal learning, and the importance of entrepreneurialism. Specific recommendations for GBL designers are provided.

Robot’s social gaze affects conflict resolution but not conflict adaptations

Robots are a new category of social agents that, thanks to their embodiment, can be used to train and support cognitive skills such as cognitive control. Several studies showed that cognitive control mechanisms are sensitive to affective states induced by humor, mood, and symbolic feedback such as monetary rewards. In the present study, we investigated whether the social gaze of a humanoid robot can affect cognitive control mechanisms. To this end, in two experiments, we evaluated both the conflict resolution and trial-by-trial adaptations during an auditory Simon task, as a function of the type of feedback participants received in the previous trial from the iCub robot, namely, mutual or avoiding gaze behaviour. Across three experiments, we compared the effect of mutual, avoiding (Exp1 and Exp2), and neutral (Exp3) gaze feedback between screen-based (Exp1) and physically embodied setups (Exp2 and Exp3). Results showed that iCub’s social gaze feedback modulated conflict resolution, but not conflict adaptations. Specifically, the Simon effect was increased following mutual gaze feedback from iCub. Moreover, the modulatory effect was observed for the embodied setup in which the robot could engage or avoid eye contact in real-time (Exp2) but not for the screen-based setting (Exp1). Our findings showed for the first time that social feedback in Human-Robot Interaction, such as social gaze, can be used to modulate cognitive control. The results highlight the advantage of using robots to evaluate and train complex cognitive skills in both healthy and clinical populations.

Re-Skilling and Placement: The Common Linking Thread for Management Education and Corporate

There is a major change in overall situations and operations of the corporate world. Hence it has become important to upgrade the skills all the time to keep up in today’s society. The workforce of the future will have major focus on re skilling. Hence the paper aims to study the areas of re-skilling to be focused by the management institutes for ensuring better placements and the ways in which corporate can benefit from the re-skilling initiatives hosted by management institutes. It also aims to prepare a framework of re-skilling areas which will benefit both the management institutes and corporate. The re-skilling areas which will benefit both the management institutes and corporate include Strategic initiatives, Skills in focus and corporate-Institutes Tie-up. It is not only about technological skills but nurturing the full range skills ranging from the creative to the complex cognitive skills which will be needed by the future workforce. The collaboration of industry, education and government will assist in managing the global issue of skills.

How Reading Motivation and Engagement Enable Reading Achievement: Policy Implications

Successful reading comprehension demands complex cognitive skills, and, consequently, motivation to make meaning from text. Research on reading motivation and engagement can inform policy aimed at improving reading achievement. Multiple dimensions of reading motivation and engagement—and instructional practices for bolstering each one—draw on interventions for students of diverse language and ethnic backgrounds in elementary and middle grade classrooms. The article concludes with policy recommendations centering on (a) the need for school administrators and teachers to learn principles of reading motivation and engagement and (b) the importance of devoting time to planning, in collaboration with researchers, how to apply these principles with particular students in particular classrooms.

Using PeerWise to develop a contributing student pedagogy for postgraduate psychology

<p class="abstract">The importance of the role of peer and self-assessment in developing formative and sustainable assessment practice in higher education is increasingly becoming evident. PeerWise is an online software tool that engages students in contributing to their own and others’ learning by authoring, answering and providing feedback on multiple choice questions. Using a mixed methods approach, 20 students responded to discussion questions and an online survey about their perceptions of using PeerWise compared to online quizzes as part of the blended delivery of a postgraduate psychology unit. Students considered both authoring and answering questions in PeerWise to equally benefit their learning. Answering questions in PeerWise was perceived to be more helpful for learning than questions on a Moodle quiz. This advantage was evident across more complex cognitive skills, understanding, applying, evaluating and creating information, although only significant for facilitating understanding. PeerWise and online quizzes were seen to be equally helpful in facilitating recall. Despite the perceived benefits of PeerWise, students preferred quiz questions to be set by an expert if used as recognition of progress. Introducing PeerWise was effective in promoting engagement with peers; however, refinements to the model should focus on increasing student confidence in their own and peers’ capabilities.</p>

Topographical orientation as a model of plasticity in children with perinatal stroke

Background: Children with perinatal stroke go on to develop most cognitive skills (e.g. language) due to brain plasticity; however, their performance is usually poor when compared to age-matched controls, indicating a reduced potential compared to uninjured children. To date, how plasticity after early injury affects the development of complex cognitive skills remains uncertain. Here, we use topographical orientation, which relies on integration of several cognitive processes underlain by widespread neural networks, as a model to test plasticity in complex behaviour. Methods: Children with perinatal stroke and age-matched controls were tested with a neuropsychological battery and a novel navigation task. In addition, for each patient, we obtained the most recent MRI scan to assess the effects of lesion characteristics on performance at the navigational task. Results: Children with history of injury performed worse than controls, and their scores were not different based on lesion’s laterality, location or functional region affected. In particular, involvement of regions known to contribute to spatial orientation did not result in significantly decreased performance. Conclusions: As seen in other skills, orientation was preserved, but decreased when compared to age-matched controls. Given its cognitive and neural complexity, topographical orientation may be used as a model for network plasticity after early injury.

Video Game, Author and Lemming

Many studies show that video games require attentive and interpretive capacity to generate complex cognitive skills in the gamer and they can be transferred to other contexts, such as school. In this paper, the authors do not aim to investigate the contents of the player's thinking, but rather his/her way of thinking. In this scenario the teacher becomes a worlds' maker, who provides his/her students with the tools allowing them to partake in the co-building of multi-tiered worlds, which requires not only the ability to get access to intangible information but also a skillful management of media interfaces. In this way, the click of the mouse becomes the action par excellence that allows each individual to contribute synergistically to the realization of the digital habitats. The ultimate goal is to search, in the learning processes activated by the video games in both the authors and the lemming, those features that make the learner a self-knowledge builder. Such “socio-cultural grammar” influences the writing and interpretation of messages, turning every individual into an author, who's often unaware of the “scriptwriting culture” that inhabits all the possible media worlds.