Learning Theory
Students in the targeted grade levels may have an incomplete skill set to complete a detailed narrative story writing. Students often get paralyzed by the complexity of details and quantity of words needed to complete a story. Ur Story helps students to achieve the goal through providing self-paced segmentation and carefully constructed scaffolding.
The simulation breaks the story writing task into smaller segments and helps students to move toward the problem-solving process step-by-step. When students are ready to move to the next segment, they can save and continue at their own pace.
Ur Story acts as a scaffold—a “more knowledgeable other”—and helps to bridge the gap between students’ current knowledge and more sophisticated practices (Reiser & Tabak 2014). Quintana and colleagues (2004) identified sensemaking, articulation and reflection, and managing investigation and problem-solving processes as three aspects of work for which scaffolding can transform tasks to make them more productive for learning (Reiser & Tabak 2014). Ur Story accomplishes these three aspects through the following essential features:
- Sensemaking entails helping learners make sense of problems or data. Ur Story helps students to succeed by engaging students in simpler tasks that are still valuable for learning. Instead of introducing difficult to understand terms such as “rising action,” or “climax” right away, Ur Story uses terms that are already familiar to students, such as “hero fights enemy.” Through selecting these narrative elements and observing their functions, students make sense of the complex structure of storytelling.
- Articulation and reflection refers to helping learners articulate their thinking as they progress on problems, and reflect on their solutions in ways productive for learning. Ur Story provides space for students to write and reflect on their choices. The simulation accomplishes it through providing explanatory feedback that deepens the students’ understanding of their choices (Johnson & Priest, 2014). At the end of each round, students are confronted with the impact of their choices and think about how their story may proceed based on their last choice.
- Managing problem solving process means helping learners with strategic choices and executing processes to achieve solutions. In Ur Story, students go beyond simply understanding the terms of story elements—they also get to learn to strategize their responses by playing different cards. The simulation helps students to realize that each of their playthroughs can result in a different story, and strategic choice is important to mold the story into one they are excited about.
Ur Story offers a collaborative mode for students to play with others. In the collaborative mode, students will be able to collaboratively create stories: for example, two students will be able to construct a shared dialogue and setting for their characters. Learners with different skills and backgrounds can collaborate in these enriched mini writing tasks and arrive at a shared understanding of the truth through negotiation (Duffy, Thomas 1992). According to Vygotsky’s concept of Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), individual learners have different developmental capabilities in collaborative situations than when they are working alone. The collaborative learning feature of Ur Story can determine a specific learner’s ZPD and help the learner to reach the potential development level. In the collaborative mode, the group members’ goal accomplishments are linked together—for the story to be entertaining and successful, all students need to contribute in a positive way. Thus, if one is to succeed in accomplishing one’s goals, others in one’s group must also accomplish their goals. The interdependence of goals motivates students to work together to gain joint rewards (O’Donnell & Hmelo-Silver, 2014).
Ur Story is a Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) tool where participants make meaning through a joint activity (story-making). This collaborative process creates group cognition. This is learning that is not merely accomplished interactionally, but is actually constituted of the interactions between participants (Stahl, Koschmann & Suthers, 2014). In the collaboration mode, students need to interact and negotiate with each other to create a shared project.
Ur Story is also inspired by constructionism theory, where building of knowledge happens especially in a context where “the learner is consciously engaged in constructing a public entity” (Kafai, 2006). The students in Ur Story will be constructing a story of their own and through the sharing feature, students are constructing a “public entity” to create meaningful learning.
Simulation Theory
Throughout the development of Ur Story, an array of design factors were applied to maximize the educational effectiveness of the simulation. Over the course of the past decade, numerous design principles have been developed that focus specifically on multimedia and simulations (Moreno & Mayer, 2007). Out of these various developments, key existing and emerging principles for visual design and interaction design in particular were extracted and incorporated into the framework of Ur Story.
Within the sphere of design factors for simulations and multimedia, visual design is focused around crafting an intentional visual presentation for an experience to optimize its educational potential. One core principle of visual design addresses how learning is improved when material is also introduced in iconic form like images and graphics, rather than solely in symbolic form like text (Plass, Homer, & Hayward, 2009). This principle was central in guiding the visual presentation of Ur Story. Though our ultimate objective in the simulation is to foster the ability to compose narrative in symbolic form, we deliberately chose to supplement each story element with engaging illustrations and modest animations to enhance a learner’s capacity to dynamically visualize and absorb the content.
A related visual design principle is the contiguity principle, which states that having related information close to one another improves learning by minimizing extraneous visual search tasks (Plass, Homer, & Hayward, 2009). We activated this design principle in Ur Story by placing text right underneath the images that supplement each story element. In doing so, we allow learners to focus on creating their story, rather than depleting cognitive resources on making sense of what they are seeing.
Interaction design principles, on the other hand, focus on how navigation and control tools can be used in a simulation to facilitate the learning process (Mayer, 2005). The segmentation principle elaborates on the implications of navigation and control tools, stating that comprehension is enhanced when users can control a simulation’s section-to-section advancement, rather than observing a fixed and continuous presentation (Plass, Homer, & Hayward, 2009). The learner control of pacing principle further adds to this, emphasizing that learning is improved when users have control over the pacing of information through features like start, pause, and stop buttons. We actively incorporated these principles into Ur Story by centering the simulation’s navigation around a “save and continue” button, which allows learners to determine their own pacing and have the opportunity to craft their story at their own speed.
While many design principles focus on restricting various factors to minimize unnecessary cognitive load and maximize learning, there are some emerging principles that also encourage flexibility and discovery. For example, the principle of manipulation of content indicates that learning in simulations is enhanced when learners can manipulate the content, while the guided-discovery principle emphasizes the importance of incorporating guidance in discovery-based subjects (Plass, Homer, & Hayward, 2009). In Ur Story, we accounted for these principles and created an experience that involves both guidance and free manipulation. By providing archetypal story elements to the learner, we establish a high-level framework for learners to use as direction in their exploration. Yet, by also providing open-ended questions and opportunities for learners to ‘fill in the blank’ for their own narrative, Ur Story crafts meaningful avenues for the open manipulation of presented content.
Through analyzing and implementing this selection of visual design and interaction design principles in Ur Story, we were able to create an experience that is both meticulously structured and elegantly accessible. That said, it is imperative to conclude our discussion by taking a step back from cognition-centered design principles and acknowledging that games and simulations are strikingly complex systems. While cognitive factors are certainly pivotal to simulation-based learning, if we truly seek to maximize educational potential, we must also consider affective, sociocultural, and motivational perspectives (Plass, Homer, & Kinzer, 2015).
In regards to affective engagement, we used a playful color palette, reinforcing sound effects, and clear and enthusiastic tone of voice to create an emotional space that encourages learners to engage with the simulation. With sociocultural engagement, we were mindful of what social identities were being included in the simulation, allowing learners to customize their character’s appearance so that they would feel represented and comfortable with channeling their authentic selves while creating their stories. Our opportunities for future development reflect Ur Story’s dedication towards motivational engagement, with features spanning automatic story generation and cross-user collaboration to cultivate interest and enhance repeated use. While user testing and iterative design are certain to present areas for improvement, intentionally incorporating empirically-derived design principles as well as emotional and sociocultural factors affords this first iteration of Ur Story a solid theoretical foundation.
References:
Duffy, Thomas; Jonassen, eds. (1992). Constructivism and the Technology of Instruction: A Conversation. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
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.
Kafai, Y. (2005). Constructionism. In R. Sawyer (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences (Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology, pp. 35-46). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511816833.004
Mayer, R. E. (Ed.). (2005). Cambridge handbook of multimedia learning. New York: Cambridge.
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O'Donnell, A. (2013). Introduction: What is Collaborative Learning? An Overview. In C. E. Hmelo-Silver (Ed.), The International Handbook of Collaborative Learning (pp. 27-62). New York, NY: Routledge.
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Plass, Jan, Homer, Bruce, & Kinzer, Charles. (2015). Foundations of Game-based Learning. Special Issue on Game-based Learning, Educational Psychologist, 50(4), 258–283.
Reiser, B., & Tabak, I. (2014). Scaffolding. In R. Sawyer (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences (Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology, pp. 44-62). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139519526.005
Stahl, G., Koschmann, T., & Suthers, D. (2005). Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning. In R. Sawyer (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences (Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology, pp. 409-426). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511816833.025
