How teachers integrate a math computer game: Professional development use, teaching practices, and student achievement

Abstract

As more attention is placed on designing digital educational games to align with schools 0 academic aims (e.g., Common Core), questions arise regarding how professional development (PD) may support teachers 0 using games for instruction and how such integration might impact students 0 achievement. This study seeks to (a) understand how teachers use PD resources (e.g., technology personnel and game-use workshops) for integration; (b) determine how teachers integrate games into their instruction; and (c) examine how those teaching practices are associated with student achievement. This mixed method study used survey and interview responses from elementary school teachers (n = 863) with access to PD resources for implementing a math game intervention and standardized math-test scores from their second-through sixth-grade students (n = 10,715). Findings showed few teachers sought PD assistance for integration, but many desired such support. Some reported using integrative practices (i.e., referencing game and using game-generated progress reports) to identify struggling students, whereas several found integration challenging. Teachers 0 reordering of game objectives to align with lessons and viewing of game-based PD videos were associated with increased student math achievement in our OLSanalysis. However, this result was no longer statistically significant within a school fixed-effects model, suggesting school differences may influence how strongly teachers 0 practices are associated with student achievement.

How a teacher professional development program influences students algebra performance Reflections from a web-based platform

“…This situation stems from the received professional development support for experimental groups" teachers. Both previous professional support projects for teachers (Bright, Bowman & Vacc, 1997;Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002) and other studies conducted in recent years argue that there is a strong relationship between teachers professional development and mathematics performance of their students (Akiba & Liang, 2016;Callaghan, Long, van Es, Reich & Rutherford, 2018;Prast, van de Weijer-Bergsma, Kroesbergen & van Liut, 2018).…”

A Field Study of Teachers Using a Curriculum-integrated Digital Game

“…Controlled experiments have suggested that digital games are more effective when combined with structured classroom activities, such as debriefing and bridging [6,11,20,44]. For example, Rowe et al found that students learned better when the teacher bridged game-based learning to classroom learning using game examples and discussion [44].…”

“…Dillenbroug and Jermann argued that teachers who 'orchestrate' the classroom and its technologies are constantly facing multi-constraint management problems [17]. Common challenges include lack of time [12,14,18,30,32,33,48,50], connecting games with learning objectives [11,14,18,33,58], identifying teachable moments during gameplay [12,33], and classroom management [14,58]. Such challenges may become more critical for games such as ST Math, that are built to be played more frequently and for the whole academic year, and in alignment with the curriculum.…”

“…One recent literature review concluded that the crucial role of teachers has been neglected or marginalized, in both research and in game design [33], with most teacher-focused educational games research focusing on barriers to adoption [12,14,18,30,32,33,50]. Only a few studies have focused on the pedagogical practices around educational games in authentic classrooms (e.g., [18,24,34,57]), especially for curriculum-integrated games [11,18]. There is a critical need to understand how games are used in classrooms, and to use this understanding to inform game design and benefit student learning.…”

Exploring the learning effectiveness of financial literacy from the microworld perspective: Evidence from the simulated transactional interactive concurrent system

“…The above interactive teaching methods rely on computer-assisted technology support. How to create an environment in which students interact with teaching materials in the classroom has always been an important issue in education (Callaghan, Long, Van Es, Reich, & Rutherford, 2018;Wang, 2015;Wang, 2017a;Wang, Chang, Hwang, & Chen, 2018). Whether it is interactive response learning such as augmented reality (AR; e.g., Chang, Hsu, & Wu, 2016;Gün & Atasoy, 2017;Hwang, Wu, Chen, & Tu, 2016;Wang, 2017b;Wu, Hwang, Yang, & Chen, 2018) or technology-enhanced learning tools such as hand-held wireless clickers (e.g., Lin, Liu, & Chu, 2011;Mize, Park, & Moore, 2018).…”