This study focuses on pre-service teachers' experimentation with a game-modding process in a constructionist setting whilst they experimented with randomness embedded in wider socio-scientific issues that call for decision making under uncertainty. In this process, participants created 39 different game mods. Our observations of the participants…

Finite Mathematics has become an enormously rich and productive area of contemporary mathematical biology. Fortunately, educators have developed educational modules based upon many of the models that have used Finite Mathematics in mathematical biology research. A sufficient variety of computer modules that employ graph theory (phylogenetic trees,…

A literature review establishes a working definition of recreational mathematics: a type of play which is enjoyable and requires mathematical thinking or skills to engage with. Typically, it is accessible to a wide range of people and can be effectively used to motivate engagement with and develop understanding of mathematical ideas or concepts.…

This study suggests that conceptualization is the primary activity of arcade-style gameplay. Arcade-style game play is primarily a function of presenting concepts to players and continually requiring them to react with finer responses. The degree to which a concept is malleable determines how large its range is in gameplay. In other words, the…

Electronic game technologies can prepare novice learners for future learning of complex concepts. This paper describes the underlying instructional design, learning science, cognitive science, and game theory. A structural, or syntactic mapping (structure mapping), approach to game design can produce a game world relationally isomorphic to a…

Presents ten propositions for increasing the likelihood that simulation game participants will learn to make more adequate decisions as a result of game play. (CMV)

Research supported by a grant form the U.S. Office of Education, Bureau of Research

Discusses basic weaknesses and limitations of models, simulations, gaming, and other analytical and behavioral approaches to simplifying reality for understanding. The development and use of scenarios and the model builder's basic conceptions of the aspects of reality being analyzed are described for a one-person, computer-interactive, quasi-rigid…

This article presents activities for developing striking/fielding concepts in modified cricket games. Though not as familiar to American children, cricket is emerging as the second (to soccer) most popular game in the world. The novelty of the skills provides an appropriate learning challenge for all students while reinforcing concepts and…

The development of game theory was a response to a need to understand human decision making processes in situations of incomplete or imperfect information. By reducing decision making situations to probability game systems, it is possible to analyze and test various competitive strategies that maximize wins and minimize losses. Although game…