Game based-learning have been widely promoted to overcome the difficulties encountered by beginners to learn programming. However, there are many issues to address for the implementation of game-based learning. Indeed, game-based learning is not limited to adding game elements such as rewards to a learning situation, but it rather consists of…

Video games' capacity to facilitate complex and interactive modes of engagement has led to their portrayal as particularly effective means for designing authentic and situated learning environments, which overcome the artificial and abstract nature of conventional teacher-centered schooling. Focusing on the intentional use of progressive-oriented…

To inform instruction, screening and diagnostic assessments must collect accurate data about the current state of the learner. Unfortunately, students may find assessments unengaging, intimidating, or irrelevant, undermining the quality of their effort and the quality of the data. The application of gaming to assessments may provide a way to boost…

The authors argue that playable fictions and analog game design can be an effective way to engage students in discussions about climate change and related scientific areas of exploration. They offer the example of a middle school climate science education unit grounded in the design, analysis, and play of board games and card games based on a…

Computational thinking (CT) has become an important skill for the new generation, and CT teaching games have been introduced to lower the barriers that novices face in learning programming. However, despite the prevalence of and demand for these games, little is known about the effectiveness of their design or about the principles that are…

This paper situates a critical review of studies that we have conducted within the broader research literature to analyze the affordances of integrating modeling within disciplinarily-integrated games from computational thinking and science as practice perspectives. Across the studies, the analyses pursue two themes: (a) the role of agent-based…

This paper responds to a 2016 systematic literature review of the research on learning games by Ke (2016). The review paper unpacked the idea of intrinsic integration in learning games, analyzing important emergent themes. The key ideas and the value of this review are discussed in the context of the recent shift to virtual instruction. The…

Dynamic assessments in general, and game-based assessment (GBA) specifically, compel us to rethink prevailing language testing conceptualizations of context. Context has traditionally been portrayed with a cognitive orientation, which focuses on static abilities, ignores complex interactions, devalues the role of tasks in determining scores, and…

Some recent science education scholarship has called for a renewed focus on empowering learners to engage with science for personally and socially meaningful purposes. However, engaging with science in these ways requires that learners adopt epistemic aims in their activity, which we cannot take for granted. I argue here that serious games could…