"The Ballad of Proxima-B" is an educational RPG that promotes learning and collaboration. Students contribute to world-building and game mechanics, creating fictional worlds and characters, including a dystopian Earth, the planet Proxima-B, and alien races. The game incorporates constructivist, constructionist, and Dynamic Systems Model…

Misinformation about climate change is a consequential societal issue, causing polarization and reduced support for climate action. However, the seriousness of the problem does not preclude non-serious solutions. There are numerous potential benefits to humor as a strategy to counter misinformation, such as attracting attention and engaging…

This article presents an experience in teaching mathematical thinking through games in a math course for non-science majors. The course described here has run twice on the campus of Sam Houston State University and is a combination of escape room pedagogy and game-based pedagogy. From these courses, I note an increased engagement of students with…

This teaching and training case demonstrates how gamification was adopted in the course design of the Tech Integration Coach Pathway, a professional development initiative for Texas adult education and literacy (AEL) staff and teachers to become technology integration coaches. The purpose of the course is to develop certified technology…

Since 2007, escape rooms have become increasingly popular in mainstream society. The heightened sense of urgency felt when participating in escape games, united with the possibility of engaging students both in academic and soft-skills has led teachers to add escape games to the list of game-based strategies increasingly used in classrooms.…

Digital Game-Based Learning (DGBL) demonstrated a positive impact on students' motivation, engagement, knowledge acquisition, and many other areas. However, all the benefits DGBL can offer for the classroom do not seem to be enticing enough to persuade classroom instructors to implement DGBL in their classroom. There is a disconnect between…

This study investigated the effectiveness of My Reading Academy, a digital learning program designed to develop foundational reading skills in early childhood education. The research examined whether the implementation of this adaptive game-based curriculum could strengthen early reading skills and increase student interest in learning to read…

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the adult students' perceptions of Game-Based Learning's mitigation of math anxiety in a STEM math course at a mid-sized university in Southeast Texas. The participants in this study included 11 students who identified as adult learners with math anxiety taught by the researcher in a STEM…

Computational thinking is acknowledged as an essential competency for everyone to learn. However, teachers find it challenging to implement the existing learning approaches in K-12 settings because the existing approaches often focus on teaching computing concepts and skills (i.e., programming skills) rather than on helping students develop their…

This study evaluated the implementation and effectiveness of My Math Academy and My Reading Academy, two digital learning programs, in supporting early math and literacy skill development during the 2021-2022 school year in Tyler Independent School District, Texas. In a district where 85% of students were eligible for free and reduced-price meals,…

This first analysis of aggregated data from the Kahoot! game-based player response system demonstrates that it can provide assessments of overall US student polar knowledge and identifies differences in polar knowledge across several states. A kahoot online quiz on polar topics recorded over 25,000 United States teacher-hosted classroom players…

Moonshot is the redesign of NASA's High School Aerospace Scholars (HAS), which traditionally engaged Texas high school juniors in a 16-week online course for credit and an intense week-long onsite experience working in teams with experts at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC). Due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), our challenge was to design,…

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic resulting in school closures, shifting to online instruction poses unique challenges for educators. The purpose of the paper is to inform practitioners on how online instruction was facilitated in a science methods course for preservice teachers (PSTs) enrolled in a public university across three campuses. The major…

Some approaches to teaching mathematics have led to decreased student motivation. Gamification is an application of game elements within nongame settings. While gamification may increase motivation in other contexts, its effective use in digital mathematics instruction to motivate elementary students is undetermined. Based on the constructs of…