“Best Practices for Teaching History Through Video Games” - Master’s Thesis

Project Overview

Engine: Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition

Game: Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition

“The Middle Ages” is a self-contained campaign created in Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition for my Master’s thesis at SMU Guildhall.  The purpose of the campaign is to help teach Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills from the 10th Grade World History curriculum using the campaign as a tool to better engage students and help retain knowledge.  The campaign’s goal is to create a framework other educators can build upon to meaningfully integrate video games into K-12 classrooms.

Bloom’s Taxonomy

The bread and butter theories for many educators are Bloom’s Taxonomy and Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. Learning takes place at different levels and different types of learning require specific cogitative processes. By using Bloom’s Taxonomy, I worked to make my levels activate skills higher on the pyramid such as analyze and apply.

Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences

Howard Gardner’s 1983 book Frames of the Mind introduces the idea of multiple intelligences – individuals are strong in different categories and not all people are strong in the same areas.  While not initially targeted towards K-12 education, his theory is often used in classrooms to help provide differentiation and individualized lessons to students.  While different than learning styles, allowing students to show their knowledge through the way that feels most natural to them, allows for more engagement and deeper learning.

Many K-12 schools employ a framework of merging Bloom’s Taxonomy and Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences to help encourage engagement from all learners and give all students the ability to show their knowledge and skills in multiple ways.

Similarly, I built my levels to try and appeal to multiple intelligences of students to help all learners to understand the material I wanted them to learn.

Jeremiah McCall has written and studied using video games specifically in history classrooms. His critical point is a game’s portrayal of the past is not as important as how the teacher uses the game to “foster inquiry and inculcate the practices of the disciplines of history.” Games help foster student’s natural history questions raised by their engagement, causing a deeper investigation of the past.

From Jeremiah McCall’s books and compiled research on using historical games in the classroom, the following best practices were outlined and applied for my reserach:

• Do not assume every student finds video games “fun”.

• Take the time to learn how to play the game and teach students.

• Encourage students to be active while playing and reflecting on their actions.

• The teacher is an active facilitator during play.

• Clearly connect the game to instruction.

• When the game is finished, take the time to discuss what they played and how it ties in with the material of the class.

J. McCall, “Teaching history with Digital Historical Games,” Simulation & Gaming, vol. 47, no. 4, pp. 517–542, 2016.

Designing my Artifact

Artifact Goals:

1. Create a series of maps in Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition that:

2. Teach the player history through their content.

3. Progression of time and student engagement in core game mechanics.

4. Prove the effectiveness of using games in a historical classroom.

Learning Objectives:

• WH.4(B) Describe the major characteristics of and the factors contributing to the development of the political/social system of feudalism and the economic system of manorialism

• WH.18(B) Identify the characteristics of the following political systems:… absolute monarchy, …limited monarchy, …

• WH.3(B) Explain the impact of the fall of Rome on Western Europe

• WH.21(A) Summarize the development of the rule of law from ancient to modern times

• WH.23(A) Describe the changing roles of women, children and families during the major eras of world history.

• WH.23(B) Describe the major influences of women during the eras of world history…

• WH.25(A) Analyze examples of how art, architecture, literature, music, and drama reflect the history of the cultures in which they are produced.

Creating the Campaign

• Create progression of content and how to play the game through a series of maps that progressively open up more and give more player choice.

• All maps centered on Melnik from Kingdom of Bohemia.

• Same map with major cities and major resources that changes over time to reflect progression.

Map 1: Basics of Feudalism

TEKS:

• 4(B) Describe characteristics of..feudalism

Highlights:

• Small Area, Clear Goals

• Quick to Finish

Teach basics of:

• Building important structures

• “Upgrading” to next age

• General movement around the map

Map 2: Economics and Diplomacy

TEKS:

• 4(B) Describe characteristics of..feudalism

• 18(B) Identify the characteristics of…absolute monarchy

Highlights:

• Larger area (full map)

• Pseudo dialogue system that teaches students how to interact with nobles (can lead to fail state)

• Player choice on how to complete goals

Teach:

• New buildings and upgrade in “feudal age”

• Making alliances for supplies

• Trade among cities

Map 3 - Military Tactics

TEKS:

• 3(B) Impact of Fall of Rome on Western Europe

• 21(A) Summarize development of rule of law

Highlights:

• Full map

• Minimal direction on how to complete objectives

Teach:

• Military units from feudal era

• Battle strategy with feudal age weapons and units (and limited supplies)

Map 4 - Society and Gender Roles

TEKS:

• 23(A) Describe roles of women in the late Middle Ages.

• 25(A) How art reflects the culture it comes from.

• 4(B) Identify some of the basic characteristics of feudalism in the late Middle Ages

Highlights:

• Story Map – No player choice

Teach:

• Roles of women in society

• How different social classes were treated in society

Crafting Supplemental Materials

To help guide educators on using the levels in their classroom, supplemental materials were created. 

Follow 5E model

Lesson plan includes:

• The TEKS being taught

• Previous knowledge students should have before starting the lesson

• A video that includes questions to help encourage student discussion and thinking (Engage)

• A pre-test to assess prior student knowledge

• A direct teach section (Explain)

• A guide to teach students how to play the level and to help them if they get stuck

• A set of questions to ask or have students answer while they play (Explore)

• A set of questions to help students reflect once they have finished playing (Elaborate)

• Post-test (Evaluate)

• Optional Enrichment activity

This set of materials also encourages educators to follow McCall’s best practices outlined above by dedicating time to teach students how to play the game, encouraging students to be active while playing the game, clearly connecting the game to instruction, and taking time to discuss the game and their learning after they are finished playing.

Testing and Results

Playtest Methodology

• 12 playtesters from SMU Guildhall’s graduate program.

• All given same pre-test and post-test.

• Two groups of testers

  • Direct-Teach Group (Seven participants): These testers were taught using the supplemental materials and treated like a normal day in a 10th grade world history classroom.  Best practices were followed, and time was taken to teach the material and the game.

  • Independent Group (Five participants): These testers were administered to pre-test, given the level to play with questions, and administered the post-test with little guidance from the researcher.  This was meant to show that learning could still take place with the levels but not as effective as following the best practices.

Limitations:

• Time was limited so pre-test and post-test were multiple choice and written on lower Bloom level to accommodate quick data collection

• All testers were master’s students and scored highly on pre-test

  • Growth was observed, but results were limited because playtesters were not intended demographics.

Results

Result 1:

Playtesters self-identified how they learned best and what kind of learners they consider themselves to be. They could choose between:

• Visual (learning via images and chart)

• Audio (learning by talking with the teacher and others)

• Kinesthetic learners (learning through active engagement with the material)

After playing the level, playtesters were:

• Even split on visual, audio, and kinesthetic learners

This playtest group allowed me to test the effectiveness of best practices on a small, but diverse group of learners.

Result 2:

• Most testers were a mixture of passive and active learners

• Chance to test “stealth” learning

L.A. Sharp’s research argued that games, including video games, are effective tools for engaging learners of all learning styles and can be used for “stealth-learning” opportunities. This playtest group allowed mer to test the effectiveness of best practices on a small, but diverse group of learners.

Result 3:

• Majority of playtesters felt confident they could answer pre-test questions correctly

• Majority of playtesters expressed interest in using more games to learn about history.

This finding reinforces the effectiveness of the best practices followed for creating the level.  Players of various learning styles all showed increased interest in historical video games and confidence in understanding the material presented to them.

Conclusions

1. Good level design, like good teaching helps to engage players and teach them not only how to play the game but also new content that other subjects outside the game.

2. The best use of games in the classroom is the teacher as a facilitator.

3. The “best practices” should be further refined based on research and testing.

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