Reconceptualizing games for integrating computational thinking and science as practice: collaborative agent-based disciplinarily-integrated games

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis 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 modeling as a synergistic local practice around which we can integrate computational thinking and scientific modeling within digital games and (b) the role of collaboration in leveraging those synergies. We then present a design of a disciplinarily-integrated game that integrates these themes to demonstrate one such possible instantiation of the themes. Finally, we discuss the implications for design and praxis with a particular focus on learning in classrooms across the curriculum. Specifically, we first explore the implications in terms of connecting to teachers’ views of practice by framing computational modeling and computational thinking as mathematization. We then explore the implications of shifting from a focus on single players to communities of practice in terms of computational participation as science as practice. We close by exploring the pragmatic and pedagogical affordances of shifting from stand-alone single-topic games to flexible agent-based environments in terms of student development across the curriculum.