Education Week Issue 25 - Technology Counts 2014 - 36

Sixth grader Jackie
Blumhoefer, middle,
reacts as she takes over
first place during a
game of SimCityEDU:
Pollution Challenge
at Valleyview Middle
School in Denville, N.J.

Playing Games,
Evaluating Skills
Embedding assessments into digital
games encourages students to see failure
as an opportunity to learn, educators say

S

imCityedu: Pollution Challenge, an educational version of the popular city-building video
game, is a known quantity in a fresh wave of
serious learning games that bridge the gap between instruction and assessment.
Released last November, the game-in
which students acting as mayors must balance the growth
of their cities with environmental impacts-tracks, analyzes, and feeds back to teachers through dashboards more
than 3,000 different data points showing how well each
student understands systems thinking.
"If a student builds one bus stop, then waits before strategically building other bus stops, he has an eye for problem-solving that I would not have gotten with a multiplechoice or written test," said Matt Farber, a social studies
teacher who beta-tested SimCityedu with 6th graders at
the 650-student Valleyview Middle School in Denville, N.J.
"We used to try formal assessments every day, and then

36

EDUCATION WEEK

>> MARCH 13, 2014

By Robin L.
Flanigan

do a summative assessment at the end of a unit every two
weeks and pretty much move on, but you don't get a lot of
reflection with that. Now, there's iteration, which I hadn't
planned on. Students get competitive for their personal
best."
That is the double benefit of games with embedded assessments, say those who develop and use them. They not
only provide a deeper insight into understanding, allowing
educators to more quickly identify students' strengths and
weaknesses, but they also thwart a growing disengagement
from traditional forms of evaluation. Teachers commonly
report that games with embedded assessments encourage
students to look at failure as opportunity-a way of thinking that will serve them well as they grow up.
Expect to see more assessment-embedded video games in
classrooms soon, experts predict.
GlassLab, a digital learning game-development studio
based in Redwood City, Calif., and the creator of SimCityedu, plans to develop five more serious learning games
with embedded assessments over the next three years with
grant money from the Bill & Melinda Gates and John D.
and Catherine T. MacArthur foundations. "We're on track,
but frankly, we don't think that's enough," said Jessica



Education Week Issue 25 - Technology Counts 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week Issue 25 - Technology Counts 2014

Contents
Education Week Issue 25 - Technology Counts 2014 - 1
Education Week Issue 25 - Technology Counts 2014 - 2
Education Week Issue 25 - Technology Counts 2014 - Contents
Education Week Issue 25 - Technology Counts 2014 - 4
Education Week Issue 25 - Technology Counts 2014 - 5
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Education Week Issue 25 - Technology Counts 2014 - 40
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