Content and Standards
Game-based design and learning can be used with any content. The focus of each Think Tank session is based on the games in production, the research focus of department faculty, and the personal interests of the educators who facilitate each session.
The Think Tank sessions have included sessions where participants designed games that encourage physical activity; in others the youth designed math games. Other years, educators chose to focus on side scrolling platform games when new prototyping software was released, or on crafting personal digital narratives. This toolkit is designed to be flexible but emphasize a few core activities.
Core Activities
Summer sessions usually progress in three phases. Initially, facilitators implement activities that familiarize youth with each other, the lab space, playing games, and our team’s approach to designing games. The second phase focuses on developing their critical game review skills and generating ideas for their product development. During the final third, youth complete their designs and present them to developers and family members.
Regardless of the content or theme of the sessions, consultants always engage in five core activities.
- Youth reflect on a question and record their response in the video closet so they develop skill in reflecting and articulating their viewpoints.
- Youth collaborate with educators to establish and nurture a supportive community, such as through establishing community guidelines, sharing information about themselves, and listening to their peers.
- Youth critically review games and media, in which they compare and contrast different products, define what makes a game fun or an app usable, and articulate the benefits or challenges of a given product. Youth test products at different stages of development, from graphics to level balancing or script review. From testing products, youth interact with developers, better understand careers in design, understand the extent and depth of full development processes, and recognize their own value and voice in improving products.
- Youth engage in the design of a product: that may be pitching a product to be made, creating a prototype using a wireframe or other development software, or producing sample assets such as scripts or artwork.
- Youth present their design project to an audience, which includes professional developers, for feedback and review.