Matching and mismatching between the pedagogical design principles of a maths game and the actual practices of play
Author
Summary, in English
The article reports and discusses a long-term qualitative study of forty 8-10 year old students who regularly played a math game during math lessons for 9 weeks. The goal was to explore the relations between (i) some of the pedagogical principles that underlie the game and (ii) the playing practice in terms of what actually takes place when students play the math game during regular math lessons. The article discusses indications of matches and mismatches between pedagogical principles and playing practice as they appear in analyses of observations and video recordings.
The result highlights the difficulty of predicting areas in which possible mismatches appear between the intentions of the pedagogues and designers of educational technology, and the actual use of the technology by the students. This also applies to educational materials that have already been pilot tested and used on a smaller scale. We emphasize the need to observe actual use for extensive periods of time, i.e. to go beyond short-time user testing.
The result highlights the difficulty of predicting areas in which possible mismatches appear between the intentions of the pedagogues and designers of educational technology, and the actual use of the technology by the students. This also applies to educational materials that have already been pilot tested and used on a smaller scale. We emphasize the need to observe actual use for extensive periods of time, i.e. to go beyond short-time user testing.
Department/s
Publishing year
2011
Language
English
Pages
90-102
Publication/Series
Journal of Computer Assisted Learning
Volume
27
Issue
1
Links
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Wiley-Blackwell
Topic
- Learning
Keywords
- design
- educational game
- pedagogical principle
- game playing in practice
- math understanding
- SoTL
Status
Published
Project
- Thinking in Time: Cognition, Communication and Learning
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 0266-4909