Balancing Expression and Structure in Game Design: Developing Computational Participation Using Studio-Based Design Pedagogy Ben Devane Cody Steward Kelly M. Tran This article reports on a project that used a game-cre ation tool to introduce middle-school students ages 10 to 13 to problem-solving strategies similar to those in com puter science through the lens of studio-based design arts. Drawing on historic paradigms in design pedagogy and contemporary educational approaches in the digital arts to teach young learners about computing, this pro gram employed a programmatic perspective to design a curriculum that emphasizes creativity within specified design tasks, instead of free-f orm individual artistry.
Introduction
Computing education for adolescent youth has drawn more interest than ever, with policymakers calling f or more research funding, better teacher education, and Ben DeVane is Assistant Professor of Learning Sciences at the University of Iowa. His research looks at collaborative and creative approaches to learning with games and playful media (e-mail:
[email protected]). Cody Steward is the Executive Director of US Windsurfing and a digital artist specializing in game design and 3D modeling. He completed his graduate work at the Digital Worlds Institute with a special ization in serious games (e-mail:
[email protected]). Kelly M. Tran studies games, learning, and literacy. Her research focuses on the learning potentials of game design and modding, both in informal educational contexts and in online commu nities. She is currently a PhD student at Arizona State University (e-mail:
[email protected]).
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added computing-oriented standards. Because of the diversity of computing activities in 21st century life, some scholars have suggested that we might think about youth computing education through the lens of computational participation (Kafai, Burke, & Resnick, 2014). Computa tional participation places added emphasis on designing, creating, and remixing alongside traditional conceptions of coding and programming. Game creation tools like Kodu and Scratch use high-level programming languages to support teaching youth to engage with abstract and algorithmic computational problem solving (e.g., Anton & Berland, 2014). Some research suggests that easy-to use game creation software could help interest young people in computing and support their nascent develop ment of computational thinking skills (Berland et al., 2013; Weintrop & Wilensky, this issue). In these tools, programming languages are integrated within visually rich interfaces that attempt to scaffold learners' under standing of programming principles like conditions, itera tion, events, and modularization (see Guzdia[, 2008). This article looks at an afterschoo[ program for youth that aimed to integrate learning about computation with in the creative discipline of game design. The project employed a game creation too[ called Kodu Game Lab to introduce middle-school students 10 to 13 to basic elements of computational problem-solving. Using the lens of studio-based design arts, the club taught learners about reasoning algorithmically and conditional ly in a given problem space. Instead of adopting a perspective on design education that emphasizes origi nality, spontaneity, and individuality, this program employed a programmatic perspective on design prac tices that emphasizes creativity within set specifications and constraints (see Schon, 1987). We think that studio design-based pedagogy may offer early computer science educators a cohesive and engag ing paradigm for fostering young learners' computational participation-their game design artistry and computa tional problem-solving. In our research, we have explored the notion that established methods of studio-based design pedagogy found in architectural education can help young people better engage with computation through game creation via a guided program of study. Our curriculum endeavored to integrate computing and studio design pedagogy by presenting students with a structured design program over the course of seven weeks. Participants are challenged to build a racing game level similar to one in Nintendo's well-known Super Mario Kart series.
Designerly Ways of Knowing You should begin with a discipline, even if it is arbitrary, because the site is so screwy-you can always break it open later. -'Quist' in Schon (1983, p. 95)
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We sought to craft a learning environment that situated computational participation within the reflec tive practice of game design. In doing so we borrowed from Schon's argument that design disciplines craft solutions to "messy and problematic situations" (1983, p. 47) by using specialized knowledge. In his study of architectural students in a school studio, Schon (1983) contended that designing is a "reflective conversation with a situation/' not an exercise in following a pro grammable mental script. One way that architectural design thinking is differ ent from computer-like problem-solving is that it involves a dynamic design situation that involves mutually-reliant functional, aesthetic, and structural considerations (Schon, 1983). And in the design solu tion the multiple layers of compositional facets must be synergetic-the right mix and balance of design 'things' is needed to yield a generative result. For instance, a design for a proposed school may have excellent organization of space, structural integrity, and material composition, with all of these facets working just right with one another. However, if all these facets work best on relatively flat land and the school is meant to be on a steeply slopping hill, all of the aforementioned facets-space, structure, and materials-may need to be altered, rethought, or reworked entirely. Game design is, needless to say, different from architectural design, but both design disciplines are very much concerned with the overlap ping complexities of aesthetics, human experiences, technological capacities, and functional use.
Learning by Designing Games and Digital Media
Our approach to grounding design in programmatic studio practice is unique, but there exists a well-found ed tradition of using game and digital media design as a tool for learning. Kafai's groundbreaking (1996) scholarship focused on helping children with their own unique approach to designing an individual frac tion game. Other design studio approaches have focused on design through collaborative teams. Hoadley and Cox (2009) had graduate students work in teams to design groupware for learning. Mathews (2010) also adopted a team-based approach to a design studio in curriculum that was focused on fos tering place-based inquiry through location-based game design. We acknowledge that these approaches are generative and efficacious for their chosen purpos es, but our approach focuses on fostering the game design capacity of individuals in a programmatic, structured, and holistic way that draws on studio-based pedagogy of architectural and arts design. Scholarship on computational thinking emphasizes a person's ability to abstract problem spaces and use algorithms to systematically frame solutions-practices
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fundamental to high-level computer science practice (Wing, 2008). While the core emphasis in computa tional thinking is the use of algorithmic procedures to solve problems, some scholarship places more empha sis on the development of this competency with programming languages (Guzdial, 2008). To the extent that this literature on computational thinking and computer science education considers the question of design, it often tacitly adopts a mechanistic view first articulated by Simon's (1969) book The Sciences of the Artificial. Design, according to Simon, is an endeavor of heuristic decision-making-it entails the search through states for an optimized solution to a problem. But in this article we take a more holistic view of design that emphasizes the multifaceted intuitive prac tices of design professionals (Schon, 1983). Kodu as a Tool for Game Design
and Computational Participation
Kodu Game Lab, which was developed by Microsoft Research, is a game-creation environment that con tains high-level visual programming tools. Kodu distin guishes itself with a unique visual interface (described below), which provides users with point-and-click tools that allow them to fashion three-dimensional game levels by placing characters and objects in a world, program those characters using conditional logic, and employ a set of game-focused commands to craft in-world events. Research on game creation tools like Kodu can sometimes find itself caught between paradigms of design and computational thinking. In an effort to help foster young people's computational literacies, game-creation environments, like Scratch (Resnick et al., 2009), AgentSheets (Reppenning & Sumner, 1995), and /PRO (Berland et al., 2013), use intuitive program ming environments to support the development of computational thinking practices. At the same time, initiatives employing these environments often engage with creative practices that constitute game devel opment, like puzzle design, level design, and anima tion (Anton & Berland, 2014). Kodu has two modes, an edit mode in which the players create the game, and a play mode in which they play the game they have produced. The edit mode has two types of interfaces: one type concerned with world level design in which users can place objects and characters, shape and design the landscape, and place automated character paths; and the second focused on object programming in which the character can set the behaviors of an object (or character). The former set of interfaces is immediately visible to the user in the 'default' edit mode, while the latter must be accessed by right-clicking on an object and selecting 'program.' Most of the immediately visible tools are focused on
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