Can Digital Game-Based Learning be incorporated in ...

Can Digital Game-Based Learning be incorporated in Serbian Primary School Curricula’s? Veljko Aleksić

Mirjana Ivanović

Faculty of Technical Sciences University of Kragujevac Svetog Save 65, Čačak, Serbia +381 62 263 001

Faculty of Sciences Department of Mathematics and Informatics University of Novi Sad Trg Dositeja Obradovića 4, Novi Sad, Serbia

[email protected]

[email protected]

ABSTRACT Computer games became firmly rooted in modern society’s entertainment and interpersonal communication in the last few decades. Consequently, educators started finding ways to exploit its prevalence in order to manage these new digital knowledge distribution channels. Even though game-based learning is not standardized, several distinct directions emerged and are used in educational practice. Bearing in mind the specificities of Serbian primary education and its current reforms, we presented one of the actions initiated by an expert workgroup managed by Serbian Institute for Quality in Education, that a game-based learning modality in form of visual programming language tool is proposed as educational standard for obligatory Technics and Informatics Education subject.

Categories and Subject Descriptors • Applied computing ~ Education • Applied computing ~ Computers in other domains ~ Personal computers and PC applications ~ Computer games • Social and professional topics ~ Computing education ~ Model curricula.

Keywords Game-Based Learning, Primary Education, Educational Standard.

1. INTRODUCTION Increased popularity of digital computer games in the past few decades have rivaled other entertainment options such as movies, television, and music. According to Fuchs [1], the digital game market reached $93 billion in 2013, and by 2015 it’s projected to grow to $111 billion. Ubiquitous computer technology and access to the Internet through PC’s and mobile devices provided increased opportunities for digital game utilization in education. Researchers have experimented with different digital game formats in educational settings, such as MMORPG [2], Virtual social spaces [3], and COTS [4]. More educators begin to see the Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]. BCI’15, September 02–04, 2015, Craiova, Romania. © 2015 ACM. ISBN 978-1-4503-3335-1/15/09…$15.00 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2801081.2801090

potential benefits of using games to engage students [5], and to build positive motivation for learning [6]. Well-designed educational computer game can have great potential for students’ achievement improvement. Even though educational potential of digital games seems promising, researchers often point out the possibility of negative influence if inadequate game design is applied, such as poor school achievement or increased self-alienation [7]. Students’ guidance and support in using computer games for educational purpose should be obligatory. As Prensky [8] stated, combining games with educational goals won’t just motivate learners, but provide opportunity for interactive learning, as educational computer games are one of the most natural forms of learning. Watson et al. [9] presented application of educational games for teaching high school history and concluded that traditional learning environment changed towards student-centered model. Digital games can significantly influence knowledge retention and educational value when compared with traditional approach [10]. Students often state problem solving performance improvement when game-based learning model is applied [11]. Game-based learning (GBL) has successfully made its way into modern school teaching practice due to the diverse influences that are mainly based on the need to narrow the gap between traditional “low tech” learning environment and the new “digital” students’ generation. To put the facts in perspective, 7th grader was born in 2002, the year the Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, Grand Theft Auto III, Resident Evil, Battlefield 1942, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, Mafia and Hitman 2: Silent Assassin were released, so ‘till he was 6 years old, all those legendary games were already history. For these generations of students, computer games (along all other modern ICT achievements) always existed and are used as default part of everyday routine. Computer gaming culture has its roots planted in late 70’s, so in authors’ own experience it is very plausible that someone that was born in 1977 played over 1000 computer games and spent over 15000 hours playing them during his life (roughly the same time as on eating/drinking [12]). Promotion of using computer video games in education perceived momentum at the beginning of the 21st century. Many researchers [13][14][15] advocate this new instructional approach as a way to present the teaching material to students in a contemporary and user-friendly manner, and to improve and facilitate the acquisition of new skills directly incited by computer-oriented society. Gee [16] defined multitude of learning principles in computer games, and recognized the influence on students’ cognitive development.

Considering the ever expanding influence of computer games on generations of children that are in schools (or will be), the necessity to somehow tangle the games and learning/teaching is clear. Of course, there are bunch of examples of how others did it, but we often overlook the social, cultural and economic environment in which the children, teachers and schools are set. Authors’ main goal was to present the intention and attempt to modernize traditional Serbian elementary school curricula by including digital game-based learning direction based on constructivist theory. If the proposed amendments are adopted, it will be one of the initial steps towards harmonization with developed countries school systems and its modern tendencies.

principle for procedures and principles teaching and constructivism for causation analysis. Although the presented views are all valid, we believe that a step forward is needed to closer define which activities in game-based learning environment are supported by designated learning principles. We decided to follow the line of general learning theories in our analysis. Their epistemology differences regarding the nature of learning and transfer of knowledge could be summarized in two basic statements:

The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents examination of different learning approaches and their basic characteristics, concluding with the relations and educational potential of computer games instructionist and constructionist perspectives. In Section 3 we presented three characteristic approaches to game-based learning. Further we decomposed constructivist visual programming tools and discussed its various examples. Bearing in mind the characteristics of the primary education in Serbia discussed in Section 4, we presented one of the workgroup results in form of obligatory educational standard. This is primary oriented to the application of game-based learning in teaching introductory programming. The last section gives concluding remarks on the topic.

 Learning is an active mental process of creating knowledge and understanding (cognitivism, constructivism and active learning).

2. REVIEW OF LEARNING THEORIES There is a general consensus that the development of an appropriate and effective educational experience should be scientifically based. Greeno et al. [17] assimilated the findings in various literature reviews on learning theories, and identified three broad perspectives on theories of learning:  Associationist approach consider knowledge as an organized accumulation of associations, and learning as the process in which associations and skills are acquired while the transfer occurs to the extent that behaviors learned in one situation are utilized in another;  Cognitivism defines learning as constructive process of conceptual growth of cognitive abilities (problem solving, reasoning, planning, etc.) and metacognitive processes;  Situative perspective emphasizes social aspects of learning and the contexts in which it takes place, stating that learning is an interactive process. Bates [18] added two more perspectives:  Constructivism, in which learning is considered as a process of active construction of knowledge, and  Didactic approach based on expert knowledge and learning by example.

 Learning is an observable change of the behavior of the learner that originates from external conditions (associationist/behavioristic and didactic approach)

These two statements can be referred as instructivism (teacher/student transmission of knowledge and relevant information) and constructivism (providing opportunities for student to achieve understanding and to construct his knowledge). Here we can differentiate cognitive (intrapersonal mental processes) and social constructivism (socially constructed nature of learning process). Ellis et al. [22] stated that using computer games in teaching process promoted knowledge construction, active learning, collaboration and critical thinking amongst students. Two different directions of educational theories about the use of computer games should be emphasized:  First direction is concentrated on the design and effects of educational games on learning and/or motivation. Warren et al. [23] listed three ways of incorporating computer games in learning: simulations, commercial games and specific game design in order to achieve curricular goals. This approach is instructional in nature, and most commercial games belong to this category. Even there are thousands of instructional computer games we still know little about which features makes an educational game good for learning.  The second approach centers on constructivist theory in order to teach children how to design or program computer games for the purpose of learning more about a specific topic in the curriculum [24]. This approach has received far less attention, even though it holds great potential for engaging children’s enthusiasm. Van Eck [25] alternatively defined three basic approaches to Game-Based Learning:  Exploiting the contents of existing commercial off-the-shelf games (COTS) for educational purposes. According to Simőes et al. [26] using COTS games in education develop students’ digital literacy, problem solving and psychomotor skills, even though learning often occurs as a side effect;

As cognitivism and constructivism can be used in order to develop effective educational materials, the same can be applied for Watson’s behaviorism [19].

 Professional development of Serious Games [27] with the primary goal of teaching and learning. Budget limitations often condition audio-visually less attractive games, which results in lower attractiveness;

All these theories were formulated long before the use of Internet in education and none of them was specifically formulated in order to support computer based learning environments. Having it in mind, Siemens [20] proposed connectivism as a learning theory for “digital age”. Ertmer and Newby [21] suggested that behaviorist principle could be used to teach the facts, cognitivistic

 The creation of computer games by students, during which they are given the opportunity to develop specific skills, such as programming, problem solving or game design. Teachers experience and game design/development skills are the most common obstacles.

3. DIGITAL GBL CONSTRUCTIVIST DIRECTIONS IN PRIMARY EDUCATION AND RELATED WORK Constructivist theory observes learning process as constructing knowledge through social interaction or certain activity, not as orthodox knowledge transmit. Field of student’s game construction as a learning modality is relatively unexplored due to objective obstacles such as classroom time constraints, complexity of external assessment, teacher readiness to apply specific teaching methods and familiarity with game programming. Kazimoglu et al. [28] noted a lack of empirical evidence that computer games are effective tools for learning introductory programming, but highlighted that effects of visual programming tools based on game design principles (e.g. Scratch, Kodu, Alice etc.) are often in scope of the studies as they allow students creating abstractions without the need for excessive program code. According to Lesgold [29], constructivist learning environment includes learners which should be stimulated for problem solving tasks or taking actions and further reflecting on outcomes, connecting the situated experience to prior knowledge. Introduction to programming can be successfully taught in constructivist manner, where students gradually build new knowledge structures while connecting them to their prior knowledge in order to build a logical and integrated comprehensive knowledge structure. For example, Rodríguez et al. [30] stated that once the student has learned the first fundamentals of an imperative language (i.e. constants, variables, data types etc.), he or she is ready to study control structures (if/while/for) of the program execution flow and integrate this new knowledge with previous.

Using the similar principle, ToonTalk video game-like programming environment was developed by Kahn and further used in a study with pre-school children [33]. Robertson & Good [34] developed Adventure Author programming tool designed for 3D interactive story game-making, aimed at students aged 10-14. Inspired by Logo, Resnick [35] presented Scratch [http://scratch.mit.edu/] visual-based tool that made game programming by children more accessible, as programming experience is no longer needed to build realistic computer games. Scratch creations are made of connected graphical blocks without programming syntax in web-based user friendly environment, as presented on Figure 2. Even though it was primarily aimed at children aged 7-9, statistics for the Scratch site show that the average age of users is 12. Online community and collaboration are well supported, and the acceptance of this technology can be currently demonstrated by over 6 million shared projects. Research papers are mainly focused on exploring motivation benefits of using Scratch, not what learning takes place in classroom setting [36]. However, Wilson et al. [37] presented how Scratch can be used with children aged 8/9 for learning programming concepts through the introduction of game making. Meerbaum-Salant et al. [38] developed learning material based on Scratch aimed at 46 nine-graders (14-15 years old). The students demonstrated clear improvement of cognitive performance, with remark that teacher initialization was reported as a main difficulty. Malan [39] stated that Scratch has even been used at Harvard University as a tool in Introduction to programming course for university students.

Constructivist idea of encouraging children to design digital computer games was initially explored over three decades ago by introducing Logo programming environment [31]. Over the years a number of languages have been developed aimed at the novice users. In order to introduce programming to children, many projects have been undertaken even outside the classroom. One of the programming tools that characterized this effort surely was Alice [32]. It was a 3D environment that supported teaching problem solving in particular way (Figure 1.). Alice is used for developing algorithms for animating virtual world objects, with the main benefit of high level of student interest and involvement.

Figure 2. Scratch web-based environment

Figure 1. Alice 3D environment

Even though GameMaker is designed explicitly for developing games using the drag-and-drop programing GUI (Figure 3.), it is a robust and complete development system thanks to GML script programming environment, which can be used to teach programming and game design principles in introductory programming course [40]. The ability to have students work with threaded objects where activities are visible on the screen, makes the platform excellent for teaching multithreading and simulation in addition to game design. Baytak and Land [41] investigated how a dozen 5th-graders used GameMaker software to explore health and nutrition concepts. Informal collaboration among students was promoted, as they were encouraged to discuss design ideas among themselves and test each other’s games. In conclusion, the study showed that students become active participants and problem solvers by designing their own games.

olds compared to 49% of 15/16 year-olds. However, 22% of students thought computer games should not be used in lessons.

4. SPECIFICITIES OF PRIMARY EDUCATION IN SERBIA

Figure 3. GameMaker GUI Game development tools like Scratch, Alice and GameMaker not only provide the opportunity to develop computer games, they also provide a GUI that can potentially soothe some of the many challenges students face when learning to program, such as learning syntax, encountering runtime errors, and debugging code. With that in mind, Microsoft developed Kodu [http://www.kodugamelab.com/], a visual programming language designed to be used by children for creating games. Isometric 3D GUI (Figure 4.) and the graphics are similar to COTS developed for younger audience. Fowler’s study [42] introduced Kodu into general school curriculum on total of 60 participants from US, UK and New Zealand. Even though introduction of this environment enriched learning experience, motivated and engaged students, it was not concluded to gain interest in programming.

Figure 4. Microsoft Kodu isometric 3D GUI Students’ active participation in the learning process by educational games creation allows them to independently explore, test their skills and knowledge and integrate them, thus further developing creativity, digital literacy and computational thinking [43][44]. Hamari & Nousiainen [45] surveyed 1668 Finnish primary and secondary school teachers. While the attitude towards the use of ICT was a significant predictor for the perceived value of GBL, it did not significantly influence the actual use of games. Roughly 20% of respondents used GBL in their teaching practice. Interestingly, female teachers saw GBL as more valuable and used it more. Sandford et al. [46] carried out a comparative research on the potential GBL implementation at four UK private school curricula’s with total of 4150 students aged 11-16. Interestingly, 14% of the surveyed teachers thought there was a lack of strong evidence of the educational value of games versus 13% that saw no barriers to using games in the classroom. Younger students preferred the use of computer games in school: 66% of 11 year-

Serbian educational system is divided into three levels, primary (eight grades), secondary (three or four grades) and tertiary (higher education), so its structure is pretty standard. However, when we analyzed some of its parameters, the findings were devastating. Based on the 2011 Census of population, households and dwellings [47] educational structure of Serbian population is not satisfactory. Over 13.7% of the citizens older than 15 (population sample in total of approx. 6,16 million) dropped out of primary school and are considered functionally illiterate, around 20.8% completed primary, and 48.9% completed some secondary school. For the first time data on computer literacy was acquired. Around 49% of population older than 15 can perform basic computer text processing, communicate with e-mail or use the Internet. According to Program for International Student Assessment – PISA 2012 [48] Serbian students had low ability and had not developed adequate level of skills for practical application of the acquired knowledge. In relation to OECD avg. of 500, Serbian students achieved around 53 points less, equal to the effect of 18 months schooling in OECD countries. TIMSS 2011 Study [49] presented that 4th-graders educational achievements are statistically higher than international average. However, we have to add that results of TIMSS research in 2003 and 2007 on 8th-graders shown that their achievements are significantly lower than in other EU counties. Latest ground reform of Serbian education system started in 2009 with acceptance of a set of educational standards [50], which were a product of four-year long project realized by Serbian Ministry of Education, specifically by its Institute for Quality of Education. Educational standards were formulated for 10 primary school subjects, while the educational standard for Technics and Informatics Education subject was left for further development, due to its complex nature. According to data acquired from Serbian Ministry of Finance [51] approx. 4.5% of GDP is allocated yearly on education, while over 90% of the funds are spent on salaries. Green and Cackett [52] stated that minimum 6% of GDP is needed for the implementation of sustainable development in education. When we analyzed the structure of Serbian Budget spending for the period 2009-2014, a conclusion was made that average 0.07% of assets are allocated on Institute for Quality Education and Institute for the Advancement of Education which are directly responsible for improving educational process. For any realistic digital game-based learning implementation schools should be equipped with a certain number of computers. Serbian Directorate for eGovernment started “Digital School” project in 2008, and in following three-year period supplied over 2800 primary schools with computer laboratories. So, at least the hardware is there. But what about the teachers? Unfortunately except informatics, mathematics and physics teachers, none of the others had any sort of computer science subjects during their higher education, so the question is not only on possibility of game-based learning implementation by their behalf, but also if they are even digitally literate. Tasić et al. [53] stated that out of the 107 teachers from 74 primary schools in Serbia, 43.5% didn’t consider themselves as computer literate, and only 21.7% of the teachers used computers in teaching. As a consequence,

significant number of teachers saw computer literacy as “less significant”. This can be interpreted as the root of their unwillingness to adapt teaching practice to new requirements, so they often orient teaching towards adopting practical skills on basic level of competencies and oversimplify the theoretical basis. Informatics and Computing is an elective subject in Serbian primary education. Introductory Programming is taught as its elective module from 6th to 8th grade. Since the legislature didn’t strictly define which programming language to study (not even a paradigm), it is left to the teachers to make the final choice. This fact is often stumbling as teachers come from variety of educational institutions, so their personal preference can be diverse and not in accordance with their colleagues. However, the arrangement can be advantageous, since it is not necessary to require a curriculum adaptation if for example some teacher wants to introduce game-based learning in teaching practice. On the other hand, Technics and Informatics Education is the only compulsory primary school subject that studies the fields of computer science and information technologies (roughly 35% of its curricula) [54]. The subject’s curriculum is very rigid and teaching programming is currently not a part of it. Considering our findings, one could ask if there is any chance for implementing game-based learning approach in Serbian primary education. But of course there is, just not the way the educators in developed countries would do it. As a part of European IPA2008 project, Serbian Institute for Quality in Education formed a workgroup consisted of educational experts and teachers in late 2011 with a purpose to create a proposal for competency based achievement educational standards for the Technics and Informatics Education (TIE) subject. According to NajdanovićTomić et al. [55] the proposal is created based on British OFSTED, Höpken's analysis of German education [56], Croatian knowledge catalogues and earlier Serbian PRIMATEH project. Inter alia, with intention to reintroduce programming in TIE and desire to develop creative and collaborative learning competencies, bearing in mind the potential benefits of gamebased learning constructivist approach, the members of expert workgroup motioned that at the advanced level of educational standard in ICT field following outcome should be stated: “Student is able to create computer programs in the visual programming language environment”. As matching teacher’s pedagogical intentions with curricular objectives and the pedagogical use of computer games requires time, adaptation and customization, the explanatory part of the outcome consists of a recommendation that the introduced visual learning environment should be based on Scratch or preferably Kodu, as there is a bilateral agreement between Microsoft® and Serbian Ministry of Education on technical cooperation and support. These authoring platforms are specifically adapted for introducing children to game development, which contributes to gaining digital literacy skills and acquisition of algorithmic knowledge. Educational standard draft for TIE subject was finalized in midSeptember 2014, and the workgroup forwarded its initiative (among others) to the Serbian National Educational Council for further review and approval. If the proposed GBL direction is adopted, a separate project conducted by the Institute for the promotion of education shall be realized with the purpose to develop new standardized and obligatory teaching materials on national level. A structured evaluation exercise of appropriate teaching material will further be carried on pilot group of around

1000 primary school students in order to analyze and validate empirical data for eventual further adaptation. Common practice is that a representative sample include 20 to 30 geographically evenly distributed schools across the country. Presented proposal is in accordance with the regional tendencies in education, as similar modality is already a part of Introductory Programming subject in neighboring state of Montenegro. Game creation and programming has been gradually introduced as learning activities in many other countries, and these initiatives that were seen as informal education are becoming formal. For example, UK integrated programming as an official objective of the primary education curriculum in 2013.

5. CONCLUSION In order to prepare students for living in today’s rapidly-changing world, they should be trained to continually come up with creative solutions to unexpected problems. Success is based not only on what or how much they know, but on their ability to think and act creatively. The paper has illustrated author’s attitude and favor of constructivist learning theory, even though it is clearly least prevalent in educational practice considering digital game-based learning directions due to its objective obstacles considering teacher skills, insufficient number of professionally developed solutions and a lack of studies that empirically evaluate competency in programming and specifically the transfer of programming competency using a game construction curriculum. Watson et al. [57] concluded that there is a lack of determined guidelines for implementation of educational computer games into curriculum and indirectly the classroom practice. Despite the difficulties, Serbian expert workgroup proposal can be considered as one of the decisive steps in modernizing its primary school curriculum, which in turn could initiate a multitude of contemporary educational trends. In order to overcome the emerging technological challenges, teachers engaged in this new learning paradigm are in fact active in developing competencies such as learning to learn, teamwork, collaborative learning and problem solving strategies. As Romero & Barma [58] stated, introducing games in the classroom should not be limited by the existing computer games neither by technology when the teacher is able to customize, repurpose or engage in creating games in technologically diverse contexts. Teachers do not need to become tech-savvy before integrating computer games in the classroom, they just should adapt their paradigm to a Community of Learners (CoL), where they are the facilitators of the learning experience and do not control everyone and everything. Modern teaching practice inevitably needs to adapt to new social circumstances. Its compliance with the new trends such as gamebased learning should not be regarded as a revolution, but evolution.

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