Teaching Game and Simulation Based Probability

Abstract

Technology and games are the areas where learners are most interested in today's world. If these two can be brought together within the framework of learning objectives, they can be an advantage for teachers and students. This study aims to investigate the learning environment supported by game and simulation. The games were used to evaluate the basic probability knowledge of the prospective teachers, to demonstrate the role of problem solving in the formation of the mathematical knowledge, and to enable discussing mathematical ideas in a worksheet. Simulations were used for visualization and a large number of experiments. The sampling of the study, by which case study research is adopted, is comprised of 40 prospective teachers at a state university in Turkey. The data were collected by introducing nine open-ended questions by means of games, worksheets and simulation activities. The questions asked relevant to the games include making predictions about the fairness of the games, playing the games in small numbers and in big numbers and the observation of the scores, calculation of the winning probabilities of the gamers both experimentally and theoretically, and their comparisons. The process of finding out the probability information underlying the games by the prospective teachers was analyzed qualitatively by means of worksheets, simulations and in-class observation, and the ways of thinking, intuitions, estimations, strategies, and opinions about the learning situation of the participants were tried to be determined. The results obtained put forward that the learning situation that was set up simultaneously contributed to the knowledge of probability and probability teaching of the prospective teachers; and that the candidates’ opinions about the learning situation are positive.