作者：Paul Gestwicki

接着我上一篇关于游戏编程课程的文章，这次我要介绍的是我对游戏设计课程的校正方案。这门课比较特殊，是专题讨论会，只向优等生开放，而且人数上限是15。每一个优等生都要参加相当于6个学时的讨论会，讨论主题是由教他们的教师决定的。

这个讨论会是为时两学期的沉浸式学习项目的一部分，而这个项目是与Indianapolis儿童博物馆合作开展的，由教务处通过网络获得资助。在荣誉学院教书不是我的日常工作，很大程度上是“委派”的，使我有机会组织这个专题讨论会。我说这个是因为幕后的计划是不为外界学术圈所知的：如果我没有获得授权，我就会教计算机科学课而不是专题讨论会。我很乐意向教务处申请我的提议，使我能够教授这门与我的研究兴趣更相符的课程。

上学期，我教了类似的课程，基本目标是一样的：鼓励学生进行游戏和学习过程的学术性研究，并且与社区合作伙伴一起完原创游戏的原型。有两个显著的区别：我是与同事Ronald Morris一起教授这门课的，而社区合作伙伴是Indiana国家博物馆。这是我第一次尝试根据成果评分。至于重新设计，我打算专注于以下几点：

Academics_Design(from gamecenter.nyu)

1、学生延期成果到学期末

2、有些学生在设计迭代之间没有或只做少量修改。

3、并非所有学生都进行反思：他们在这个过程中没有充分学习。

4、因为前面三点，课堂原型评估时间没有得到充分利用。

去年我通过讨论会认识了一些新同行，他们乐意与我分享技巧和点子，我很高兴。特别是，以下几点想法我借鉴了Syracuse大学的Scott Nicholson和Little Bird工作室的Lucas Blair的研究。

也许对这门课最重要的修正就是引入反思作文。和我的游戏编程课一样，我受到参与性评估模型的启发，决定根据反思打分而不是作品本身。学会生把每周的作品在课堂上展示出来，所谓的作品包括短文摘要和正文、海报、一页纸的设计或原型。其他学生和专家将根据工作室的“批评”模型对这些作品进行形成性评估。然而，真正接受评分的是学生对自己的作品的反思。与我的游戏编程课一样，我要求学生围绕必要问题书写反思，并根据他们对必要问题的描述、实践应用和对描述的批评来打分。我已经读过的研究表明，成果评估和反思相结合的办法可以鼓励学生制作更高质量的作品，且不牺牲内在动机。

上次，我让学生提前选择专题和开始迭代进程。到学期末，设计做得最好的学生，基本上是那些抛弃原设计中的主要元素或完全更改主题的学生。这导致学生渴望对想法做更多修饰，而不是改善原型；然而，我仍然希望每个学生在学期末都能做出有效的原型。为了解决这个问题，我把学期分成三个部分。在第一部分，我们会学习课程的主题词，如游戏、乐趣、学习、思考和孩子。学期的第二部分将是根据博物馆方指定的主题快速制作设计草稿，大约每周完成一个草稿。之后学生将选择其中一个草稿制作原型，并且在学期末时上交。我希望这个课程修正能改进所有学生的原型：即使这使他们制作原型的时间减少了，但他们会更加专注，更多地反思。

在这个分成三部分的学期中，我将把作品分成组，每部分分配一些作品。还有一个叫作“无限制”的分类，随时都可以提交作品。我还引入
一个限制条件，也就是每周提交一个成果，每两周提交一次修改版。学生的得分与他们上交的成果数量挂钩，这样可以帮助学生确定提交成果的进度，同时避免我在学期末不得不评估过多的作品。

与用数字徽章评估学习过程的最通用设计原则一起，我引入了一个成果的“等级”系统；给成果评星星，表明创作者还需要付出多少努力，这些星星与成果的数量和反思得分挂钩，共同决定学生的得分。注意，在这三项指标中，有两项是直接由学生决定的，除了反思得分——但允许修正。因此，学生基本上可以根据自己的课堂表现估计得分。

每一个徽章都由名称、简介、条件和图标组成。今年的简介和图标是新的，我认为这是一大进步。我使用OpenBadges.me来设计徽章图标，还大量借鉴The Noun Project的图标。

注意，第二和第三部分的核心课堂活动与评星星的成果有关。例如，在五周的原型制作期内，每周都展示设计的修改版的学生将获得两个星星，如果要获得A，就要获得四个星星。确实，我打算通过这个课程制定出一个标准路径，这个路径由三部分组成：学生直接询问、一页纸的设计的两个星星，原型制作的两个星星——在第一次班会上，我将把这些清楚地告诉学生。然而，这个系统也允许学生选择不同的路径：如果有学生更喜欢游戏批评，或阅读和报告游戏设计文本，这些活动仍然可以获得学分。

今年的另一个变动是，参考上学期的学生反馈。上一学期，学生可以通过玩若干我推荐的具有特殊机制的游戏来获得成绩。我的意图是，我可以引导学生体验我认为有趣的游戏类型、机制和主题，但结果是，这个成绩很难获得且耽误了课程活动的奖励。注意，今年的星星成绩没有标准的“等级”成绩，所以要获得相同的奖励，学生要花更多时间。今年，我要让学生有更多自由去选择他们想研究和批评的游戏。他们可以选择各种类型的游戏，包括体育运动和赌博。我仍然会推荐一些游戏，但不要求学生必须选择我推荐的游戏。

这个课程设计的致命点是确定必要问题。目前我想到两个：

1、游戏、乐趣和学习之间的关系是什么？

2、如何设计一款针对儿童的教育类游戏？

我考虑再引入一个关于设计的问题，比如“什么是设计？”，但它似乎与第二个问题有所重叠。我担心添加这样的必要问题会削弱第二个问题的重要性。最后，我要指出，第一个必要问题已经明确地指导了我过去几年以来的工作，它是我在Virginia B. Ball Center的讲座的主题。这个问题太大了，其他问题与它相比都显得苍白无力。

这个夏天，我花了约三周的时间修改我的下学期课程，我发现自己很期待新学期。是个休息、反思和修改的好机会。当然，这些工作都是无偿的，但正如《Spirit of Christmas》所说的，美德的奖励更加吸引人。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Revising Courses, Part II: Game Design

by Paul Gestwicki

Following up on my previous post about revising my game programming course, today’s post is about a revision to my game design course. This course is an honors colloquium, a special topics course only open to honors students and with an enrollment cap of fifteen. Every honors student has to take six credit-hours worth of colloquia, and the topics depend on who is available to teach them in any given semester.

This colloquium in part of a two-semester immersive learning project undertaken in collaboration with the Indianapolis Children’s Museum, and it is being funded by internal funds through the Provost’s office. Teaching in the Honors College is not a normal part of my load, and a major portion of the grant is “assigned time,” allowing me to teach this colloquium. I mention this because the behind-the-scenes machinations are likely opaque to those outside academia: if I didn’t have the grant, I would be teaching a Computer Science course instead of the colloquium. I am grateful to the Provost and his committee for approving my proposal, which allows me to teach this course that aligns so well with my research interests.

I taught a similar colloquium last Fall, and it had the same fundamental objectives: engage students in the academic study of games and learning, and, in collaboration with a community partner, have them produce prototypes of original games.There were two significant differences: I was team-teaching with my colleague Ronald Morris, and the community partner was the Indiana State Museum. It was my first attempt at achievement-based (i.e. badge-based) grading, and I wrote a lengthy reflection about the experience. For the redesign, I decided to focus on a few specific pain points from last time:
The students put off achievements until the end of the semester.

Some students made zero or nominal changes between game design iterations.

Not all the students were engaged in reflective practice: they were not adequately learning from the process.
In-class prototype evaluation time was rarely meaningfully used due to the points already mentioned.

I have met a few new colleagues through the conference circuit in the last year, and I am grateful for their willingness to share tips and tricks. In particular, the following changes reflect some specific ideas I have picked up from Scott Nicholson at Syracuse University and Lucas Blair at Little Bird Games.

Perhaps the most important revision to the course is the introduction of reflective essays. As in my game programming course, I was inspired by the participatory assessment model to grade reflections rather than artifacts. The students will present their weekly artifacts to the class, where artifacts might include summaries of essays and articles, posters, one-page designs, or prototypes. These artifacts will be subject to peer and expert formative evaluation, following the studio “crit” model. However, it will be students’ reflections on these artifacts that are actually graded. As in my game programming course, I have decided to frame these reflections around essential questions and grade them based on (a) how they characterize an essential question, (b) the implications to practice, and (c) potential criticisms of the characterization. The research I have read predicts that this combination of achievement criteria and reflections should encourage students to produce high-quality artifacts without sacrificing intrinsic motivation.

Last time, the students had to choose a topic and iterate on it fairly early. The students with the best designs at the end of the semester were, for the most part, those who had to throw away major elements of their design or change themes entirely. This leads toward the desire to do more rapid iteration on ideas, not just prototypes; however, I still want each student to create a significant prototype by the end of the semester. To address this, I have divided the semester into three parts. In the first part, we will survey major themes of the course, such as games, fun, learning, museums, and children. The second part of the semester will be rapid creation of design sketches based on specific themes at the Children’s Museum, about one sketch each week. The students will then choose one of these to prototype for their end-of-semester deliverable. I hope that this approach improves all the students’ prototypes: even though they have less time to work on their prototypes, that time will be more focused and based on having had more reflective practice earlier.

Going along with the three-part division of the semester, I have organized the achievements into groups, some of which are tied to one of these parts. There is also an “unrestricted” category that can be earned at any time. I have introduced a throttle of one achievement submission per week plus one revision per two weeks. The students’ grade is tied to the number of achievements they earn, and so this should help the students pace themselves while keeping me from having to evaluate an inordinate number of submissions at the end of the semester.

Following the most popular design principle for assessing learning with digital badges, I have introduced a “leveled” system of achievements. Certain achievements have gold stars attached to them, designating them as requiring special effort. These stars are tied in with number of achievements and reflection points in order to determine a student’s grade. Note that two out of the three of these are directly in the student’s control, and the one that isn’t—reflection points—permits revision. Hence, students can essentially pick their grade based on their level of legitimate participation in the class.

The full list of achievements is available online, and you can view it on its own page or embedded into the course description. Each badge is defined by a name, a blurb, criteria, and an image. The blurb and image are new this year, and I think they represent a major improvement. I used OpenBadges.me to design the badge images, making significant use of icons from The Noun Project. In case you’re curious or want to sketch up your own, the border is the Ball State red taken from our logo (#ed1a4d) and the starred achievements use light yellow background (#ffff66).

Note that the core class activities in the second and third parts of the class are associated with achievements that lead up to stars. For example, a student who shows design revisions every week for the five weeks of prototyping will earn two gold stars, which are half of those required to earn an A. Indeed, I intend for the standard path through the course to consist of some student-directed inquiry in the first part, then two stars from one-page designs, then two stars from prototyping—and I will make this clear to the students at our first meeting! However, the system gives the students agency to choose a different path: if someone wants to focus on games criticism, or reading and reporting on game design texts, these are still rewarded and earn course credit.

One other change this year is based directly on student feedback from Fall. Last time, I had an achievement that was earned by playing several games that exhibited specific mechanics that I had identified. My intention was that I could guide students to experience genres, mechanics, and themes that I found interesting, but it ended up making the achievement hard to earn and delayed rewards for legitimate course activity. Note that there was no formal “leveled” achievements as I have this year with starred achievements, so this one achievement took much more time for the same reward as any others. This year, I have given the students much more freedom to choose a the games they will study and critique. They can choose analog, digital, or hybrid games, including sports and gambling games. I still provide some scaffolding through the games I chose to put on course reserves, but students who want to go in a different direction are free to do so.

The one weak spot in the course design, as of this writing, is the identification of essential questions. I have come up with two so far:

What is the relationship between games, fun, and learning?

How do you design an educational game for children?

I thought about introducing a third about design generally, such as “What is design?”, but it seems that this is embedded into the second question. I worry that adding such an EQ would diminish the impact of the design-related one I already have. Finally, I will point out that the first essential question has explicitly guided my work over the last several years, and it was the explicit topic of my seminar at the Virginia Ball Center for Creative Inquiry: it is such a big question that others pale in comparison.

After having spent about three weeks this Summer revising my Fall courses, I find myself looking forward to the start the semester. It is good to have the time to rest, reflect, and revise. Of course, all this work has been without compensation, but, as the Spirit of Christmas once said, the rewards of virtue are infinitely more attractive.(source:paulgestwicki)