Background Research and Information
Nov 29th, 2015 by abduln6
Thought Process:
Our first idea focused on nutrition. We were told at our first visit to the school that many students do not have access to food all the time. We decided to allow students to have an interaction with food by letting them create a dish based on a persona they chose.
After that, we were told to create an academic component into our design or activity. We again were told by administration that students struggle with English and math. We looked into the Common Core Standards for 5th graders in New York State and discovered that fractions are a major area focused on during the year. We decided that fractions because they are so essential in the real world and can be applied in many applications.
Math Common Core overview: Page 3 has the outline of when certain concepts should be taught. This is the outline we followed but how well students learn the material is not shown here.
Outside Articles:
There are many articles that support video games that incorporate mathematics into the game. Many say that video games are an all or nothing idea. Either the video games are only math and you know that when clicking the link, or the video game claims to be math related. (Video Games are the Perfect Way to Teach Math) After receiving feedback from our newest version, we realized that our game unfortunately veered away too much from math, making it more of a video game than a learning tool for teachers to teach math. (Learning Math with a Video Game)
Existing Games:
Our goal was to create a game that had a game with math but less obvious than common ones that are specifically math focused. By doing this, students would be more excited to play a game that they think have other portions to it rather than having it blatant that the game focuses on math. Below is a link to games that are currently on the internet. This website breaks down the math concepts by grade and even has common core page which is what we based our game on. I tried playing some of the games, and many were not as intuitive as I hoped which is what we aimed for after receiving feedback from the first time the fifth graders played the game.