Pros and Cons of Using Simulation Games to Teach Climate ChangeIntroduction: Topic: Climate Change and Global Warming This topic involves many complex phenomena and uncertainties. The issues involving climate change not only arise from uncertainties in underlying science, but also from uncertainties about behavioral, economic and political factors. Also, global warming is usually too slow for individuals to recognize, thus making it a hard concept to create concrete understanding. Therefore, simulators are a great way to address the challenge. Something to keep in mind is that a simulation itself cannot replace other learning materials as it cannot depict every aspect of the issue: “a simulation has to choose a very small subset of characteristics around which to build its representation” (Salen & Zimmerman, 2003 ch. 27). Therefore, the simulation is a tool to complement the study of a complex subject matter, but cannot be used alone as the main and only study tool. In this example, we will look at “Climate Challenge” and its features. In the Climate Challenge simulation game, the player takes the role of the President of the European Nations. The President decides on policies and handles international negotiations that change the fate of the European economy, resources and environment. In order to win this game, the player must reduce CO2 emissions. How does this simulation contribute to the learning objectives? The simulator uses mathematical models based on carbon dioxide emission forecasts produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). One of the challenges of this subject is that global changes usually happen too slowly for individuals to recognize, but accumulated human knowledge, together with further scientific research, can help people learn more about these challenges and guide their response (Keller & Quinn, 2012). The climate models are an important tool to forecast change over a short period of time and help us make decisions based on the impact of human actions on the earth. This simulation helps students to understand the complex model of stability and change, and at the same time provides potential solutions to climate change. Exploring explanatory feedback in the simulation Most class materials provide a static representation of the concept, however the interactive simulation provides gradual change based on our actions. Through operation and configuration, the students get real-time feedback on the complex global change system. The simulation provides explanatory feedback that deepens the students’ understanding of the subject (Johnson & Priest, 2014). At the end of each round, the President gets a newspaper report on how people reacted to the policies chosen and the President’s voter approval rate based on their policies. This helps the students to reflect on their choices and their choices’ effectiveness in a different form of evaluation. The game provides immediate feedback on the degree of political approval (bottom right corner) when a certain action card is selected. The game also reveals immediately how the resources would change by selecting each card. According to an experiment by Moreno and Valdez (2005), the immediate feedback in an interactive environment may have a negative interactivity effect. When players are shown immediate feedback, they may abandon learning objectives and proceed with simple “trial and error” strategy, such as selecting the card that reflects the best approval rate, or selecting a card that reflects best the emission reduction. Doing this as a class activity helps to prevent this behavior, as the teacher acts as a guide to help students discuss why such choices have been made and why such choices are a good solution to the current problem. Fiorella, Vogel-Walcutt, and Schatz (2012) examined the modality principle when feedback was provided to students in a complex simulation-based training task and proved that spoken feedback was better than print feedback for learning (Mayer, 2014). The simulation provides only print feedback with no sound effects either. Therefore, the simulation could be improved by the teacher reading the printed feedback outloud. Students with low spatial ability have trouble understanding long explanatory feedback (Johnson & Priest, 2014); the tutorial section of the simulation provides a guided instruction to how to use the simulation, which reduces some of the processing load of a long explanation. It could be improved with a in-game worked-example of the first round to help students with low spatial ability overcome the cognitive load on working memories. A worked-example guided by a live instructor would also help to overcome this. The simulation game creates a guided discovery-based learning environment (Moreno, 2004). The teacher and the simulator prompts are designed to elicit self-explanations (“which variables are you most sure and least sure will have an effect on the emission goal?”) and reason justification (“for the variable you are most sure will have an effect, why do you think so?”). The prompts will help the students through their inquiry process. Process constraints can be a useful tool in this phase of learning to reduce the complexity of discovery-based learning (Jong & Lazonder, 2014). Simulators are a great way to include model progression that allow students to explore one variable at a time while gradually increasing the complexity of the task. References:
Johnson, C. I., & Priest, H.A. (2014). The Feedback Principle in Multimedia Learning. In R. Mayer (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (2nd ed., 449-463). New York: Cambridge University Press. Jong, T., &Lazonder, A., (2014) The Guided Discovery Learning Principle in Multimedia Learning. In R. Mayer (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (2nd ed., pp. 371-390). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Keller, Quinn, (2012) A framework for K-12 science education : practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas. Logan Fiorella, Jennifer J. Vogel-Walcutt, & Sae Schatz. (2012). Applying the modality principle to real-time feedback and the acquisition of higher-order cognitive skills. Educational Technology Research and Development, (2), 223. Mayer, R. E. (2014). Cognitive theory of multimedia learning. In R. Mayer (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (2nd ed., pp. 63). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zimmerman, E., & Salen, K. (2003). Rules of play: Game design fundamentals. Boston, MA: MIT Press.
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![]() Bransford and Schwartz (1999) state that experts have the ability to critically assess and “let go” of their current knowledge and beliefs. They suggest we should take the attitude of viewing “expert” as an “accomplished novice.” This concept is very similar to the Zen concept of “emptying your cup.” The Zen master believes you have to let go of your current pride and knowledge to learn new knowledge. Previously, Bransford and Schwartz (1999) gave another definition of expertise in terms of being able to have well-differentiated knowledge, for example the dressmaker is able to understand the different types of scissors used to cut cloth and threads. This definition of expertise seems to be contradictory to the idea of “letting go.” Building differentiated knowledge is similar to Ausubel's derivative subsumption–adding new concepts related to the current concept. As in the dressmaker scissors example, they start to add different types of scissors to their existing concept of scissors. Later, they are able to link each scissor type to its appropriate function. However the idea of “letting go” is best achieved by preparing people to “resist making old responses by simply assimilating new information to their existing concepts or schemas.” (Bransford & Schwartz,1999, p22) It is about getting rid of “intuitions” or “obvious” ideas to avoid erroneous assumptions. To achieve expertise, it seems that assimilating new information is needed, but also needs to be avoided. However, the two concept may not be absolutely opposed Maybe the two ideas are sequential. To a novice learner, assimilating new information to existing schema is an essential tool to reach the first level of expertise (from novice to journeyman). On the next level, it is necessary for a semi-experienced individual to completely critically reflect their knowledge and beliefs to become more effective learners (from journeyman to master). Once the master level is reached, it is important to start creating artful analogy to prepare for another generation of learners. References: Bransford, J. D., & Schwartz, D. L. (1999). Rethinking Transfer: A Simple Proposal with Multiple Implications. Review of Research in Education, chapter 3. Vol 24 pp 61-100 IntroductionThe purpose of this assignment is to critique learning materials using multimedia principles. Our team chose the topic of the lost city of Pompeii and compared a children's picture book, a museum exhibition, a video (talking heads) , and a website. The following part is my critique of the museum exhibition in Toronto, Canada. The ExhbitionPompeii: In the Shadow of the Volcano was an exhibition featured at the Royal Ontario Museum. It provided factual information to museum visitors of all ages about the lost city of Pompeii, focusing on the life of residents at the time of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD. The exhibition had a variety of displays: from ancient artifacts in protected cases to playable replicas of the Roman food market, from interactive touchscreens to sculpted replica of the casts of the residents’ remains, the exhibition packed a variety of media formats and information about the ancient Roman life. For any exhibition, the challenges are 1) to include a variety of media formats to attract visitors of all ages and backgrounds, 2) to pack abundant information for revisit-ability 3) keep visitors flowing from entrance to exit in a limited space. The museum as a learning medium has its own advantage. It is great at segmenting the displays, allowing visitors to conduct self-paced learning by roaming individual sectors any time, hence closing the gap between low- and high-working memory learners.(Mayer & Pilegard, 2014). The volcano eruption sector of the exhibition included four major elements: a banner diagram of the volcano, a 3D model of the area at the foot of the volcano, a video of the eruption, and an infographic wall displaying the timeline following the eruption. The elements aim to give the visitors an idea of what happened to the Pompeii citizens and how it happened.
![]() On the right side of the banner, there was a video of a volcano erupting (no narration or music, just the sound of the volcano erupting) projected on the wall and an infographic wall. One may argue that placing the video of the volcano eruption in the same room as an image of the volcano is redundant. However, the two elements have different purposes. The banner aims to teach visitors about the formation of the volcano. The video on the other hand, aims to provide visitors with a virtual experience of witnessing a volcanic eruption and complements the infographic timeline wall. While people are reading the wall about Pompeii and the number of casualties—laying out a timeline of the eruption and showing how many people could have escaped at which points, up until the point when escape was no longer possible—they can feel the volcano erupting in the distance. Again, these two serve as constructing representations, grouped together to deepen the understanding of the environment of choices the residents faced. The sound of the video is deafening and provokes a strong emotional response. Strong emotion can help recognition and enhance recollection (Martinez 2010, p.157). Unlike the 3D model of the villages, the bronze statue placed before the video is not connected to the display, it doesn’t serve any constructing representations. It seems that it is placed there due to limitation of space. It would be better if the place is used to display a touchable element that is related to the volcano. The infographic faces many challenges similar to those mentioned before, such as labelling in both languages with limited space. It uses complementary representation, for example the use of pie chart with corresponding text, to support different inferences (Ainsworth, 2014). The red line on the infographic shows each major change (eruption) of the volcano and serves as an iconic representation of the event. The infographic follows color-coding principle and helps visitors differentiate different timeline. It would be interesting if some of the touchable display of the specimen of pumice (displayed in another sector) were displayed closer to the wall where the word “pumice” is highlighted. |