This qualitative research is part of a learning effort to better understand how serious games are exploited in a science education context. The research team examined this issue by focusing on augmented reality as a technological innovation imbedded on a tablet. Given the current state of knowledge related to serious games and augmented reality, and given the fact that its use in the context of teaching/learning is not extended, this paper focuses on an initial exploration of how a new teaching practice involving a serious game based on an interactive augmented reality solution would impact on students in a physics class. A Design Based Research methodology was applied in a real‑world context within a college‑level physics class. Two conceptual tests containing ten questions on spatial notions regarding electromagnetic fields were administered to two control groups and two groups using the proposed serious game. The latter groups were administrated a game evaluation questionnaire as well. Thematic interpretation of students written responses to the evaluation questionnaire as well as the lessons and observations we derived from the in-class experimentation are provided and discussed in the paper.
Curriculum integration is one of the main factors in the teachers’ decision-making process when deciding to use games in formal educational contexts. Based on this observation, we aim to introduce pre-service teachers to Game Based Learning (GBL) and Serious Games (SG) integration in the curriculum. The teaching experience aims to facilitate different approaches to GBL and SG integration in the curriculum, including three types of GBL activities. Firstly, the use of Serious Games (SG), designed for educational purposes from the start; secondly, the game creation as a learning activity through game authoring platforms; thirdly, the use of repurposed entertainment games, which, despite not having being intentionally designed for educational purposes, could be diverted for meeting the curriculum objectives of primary education. A group of 51 pre-service teachers participated in the teaching experience during which they selected a GBL activity among the three types of GBL and SG integration in the curriculum. Most of the teachers succeed to identify SG created for educational purposes, and we observed 6 entertainment games repurposed for educational objectives, none of the pre-service teachers decided to integrate a game creation activity in the curriculum. We analyze the results of the teaching pre-service experience and the opportunities to introduce GBL and SG in pre-service teachers’ education.
Adopting activity theory as a theoretical and methodological framework, this case study illustrates how a teaching and learning situation is planned and implemented over a series of nine 75-min biology classes by a high school science teacher in the context of pedagogical reform. The object of this study emerges within a favourable context of science education curricular reform in Quebec, Canada. By examining the interaction between the poles of an activity system sharing the same object, this case study illustrates how one teacher's teaching practice is redefined and how some aspects of her teaching personality orient the ways in which she contextually mobilizes new tools and members of her school community in order to implement an awareness campaign on the risks of tanning salons.
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