Replaying History:

1
Replaying History Learning History through
playing Civilization III in Urban Classrooms
Kurt Squire Doctoral Candidate, Instructional
Systems Technology, Indiana University Games-to-Te
ach Research Manager, MIT Comparative Media
Studies
2
Overview

• Background
• Research on Games Education
• Issues in Social Studies Education
• Theoretical Background
• Methods
• Results
• Analysis
• Findings
• Next Steps

3
Background Pirates!
4
Modeling VSS Project

• Learning astronomy by building
• Solar systems
• Earth Moon / Sun
• From constructionism to modeling
• Asking questions
• Using model as tool
• Issues
• Technological ramp-up
• Interface issues
• Construction vs. Thinking

5
Simulations PBL Activeink
We wanted something more like a game
6

• Insert sim city slide

7
Gaps in Research

• What are people learning through games?
• 0 studies of learning through SimCity /
  Civilization
• How does game play remediate players
  understandings?
• How do students interpret game playing
  experiences?
• What supporting curriculum are useful?
• What happens when computer games come into the
  classroom?
• How do games fit in the curriculum?
• Can players learn academic content through game
  play?
• What design features support engagement?
  learning?
• Competition, collaboration
• Reflection?

8
Background Games Education

• Intrinsic motivation
• Fantasy, control, challenge, curiosity (Malone,
  1981)
• Collaboration, competition (Malone Lepper
  1985)
• Choice in fantasy (Cordova Lepper, 1996)
• Hypothesized cognitive benefits (Squire, in
  press)
• Develop robust systems-level understandings
• Replay what if scenarios
• Examine multiple perspectives
• Failure states lead to learning (Schank, 1994)
• Emergence of training games
• Military (Prenksy, 2000)
• Virtual U. (Sawyer, 2002)
• Potential for scalability and sustainability
  (Squire, 2002)

9
Civilization III

• Lead a civilization from 4000 BC - 2000 AD
• Build cities to use geographical resources (food,
  production, trade)
• Manage tax rates, science research, and luxuries
• Negotiate with other civilizations
• Build military
• Choose between technologies wonders

10
Civilization III
11
(No Transcript)
12
(No Transcript)
13
Games in Social Studies Education

• Long tradition of social studies games research
• (e.g. Clegg, 1991 Wentworth Lewis, 1972)
• Experimental studies
• Typically fact acquisition models of learning
• Few show increased learning
• Lots of no significant differences
• Weaker students perform worse in gaming
  environments
• Instructional context is critical
• Collaboration is important variable (Johnson
  Johnson, 1986)
• Set up and debrief as important as gaming
  itself
• Increased interest in learning activities (Ehman,
  1991)
• Not grounded in any theory of learning
• Little theoretical, practical rationale (Gredler,
  1996)

14
Social Studies Education

• Dont know much about History
• Confusing basic facts
• Lacking background narratives (Beck McKeown,
  1994)
• Geographical names, terms
• Poor sense of time scale
• Making connections among historical events
• Ahistorical thinking (Wineburg, 2000)
• Position artifacts in contexts
• Adopt other perspectives
• Critique social discourse

15
Issues in Social Studies Ed (cont.)

• Students hate history (Loewen, 1995)
• Least favorite subject
• Misconceptions about domains
• Geography as collection of facts
• History nations and governments (Loewen, 1995)
• Texts received truth
• Identity in learning
• Lived vs. school knowledge (Wertsch, 2000)
• Reject dominant narratives (Loewen, 1995)

16
(No Transcript)
17
Marginalized Students

• REALLY hate History (Loewen, 1995)
• Very little background knowledge
• Resist dominant ideologies, narratives
• Conflicts with lived history
• Marginalization of personal stories
• Dominant narratives (Wertsch, 2000)
• Identity transformation

18
Approaches to Social Studies Education

• Mastering one true story (Seixas, 2000)
• Bears little resemblance to historical practice
• Produces apathy and resistance (McLaren, 1992)
• Disciplinary approaches to history
• Engaging in authentic historical practice (Barnet
  et al., 2000)
• Collaborative Communities of Inquiry
• Learning to think historically (Wineburg, 2000)
• Critical approaches to social studies
• All history is political
• Social studies is the liberation of the oppressed
  (Friere, 1979 Giroux, 1986 McLaren, 1991
  Spring, 1984 Zinn, 1992)
• Identity is critical to learning

19
Social Studies as Cultural Practice

• Inquiry is a social, cultural, and political
  process
• Not memorizing facts (Stearns, Seixas, Wineburg,
  2000)
• Not mastering heritage (Wertsch, 2000)
• This study is not disciplinary history
• Inquiry is interdisciplinary investigations
• World History Studies
• Identifying patterns, connections
• Geography, politics, economics, history
• Adopting other perspectives
• Understanding time scales
• Embracing scientific methods

20
World History

• Problems of wholes and parts
• History is an emergent process in which a future
  is more than the sum of what went before
• More than the sum of local histories
• History as global (Ross, 2001)
• Not Eurocentric
• Not National
• History as synthetic processes
• Broad trends
• Disconnected facts vs. Patterns across time
• Interdisciplinary History
• Economics, anthropology, geography (Diamond,
  1999)
• Embracing scientific methods tools

21
Civilization III as Mediating Artifact

• Social Studies

• Civilization III

22
Theoretical Framework Socio-cultural learning
theory

• Vgotsky Social processes ? tools and signs
• Each function of the childs (or adults)
  cultural development appears twice first on the
  social level, and later, on the individual level
  first between people (interpsychological) and
  then inside the child or adult (intrapsychological
  )

Tools and signs
Mediation a process involving the potential of
cultural tools to shape action, on the one hand,
and the unique use of these tools, on the other
(Wertsch, 1998)
mediation
Objects
Subject
23
Activity Theory
Outcomes
Artifacts / Tools
Subject
Object
Division of Labor
Rules (formal and informal)
Community
24
Activity Theorists

• The minimal meaningful context is the
  dialectical relations between human agents
  (subjects) and that which they act upon (objects)
  as they are mediated by tools, language, and
  socio-cultural contexts.
• Dialectical Relations (Leontv 1978)
• Subject Goals, motives, conditions
• The object of an activity gives it its
  direction
• Relations among mediating artifacts (tools,
  signs, language, social relations) (Engestrom,
  1996)
• Contradictions (Engestrom, 1987 1993)
• Characterize activity systems
• Used to predict and analyze evolution

25
Research Questions

• What happens when Civilization III is used for
  learning?
• What learning occurs through game play?
• What meanings are taken as shared?
• Are there gender differences in game play?
• What practices do students engage in?
• How do students interpret the their game play?
• How do students contextualize game play?
• What additional instructional supports are
  useful?

26
Contexts

• Media School
• Urban High School
• 18 Students
• 1 Teachers me
• Grade 9 XY
• 1 hour enrichment class
• 3 X 6 weeks
• Additional camp week
• (4 hours X 5 days)
• Total 35 hours

• YWCA after school
• Working class urban
• 10 students, Grades 6-7
• 1 teacher
• 2 ½ hour enrichment class
• 2 per week for 4 weeks
• Total 20 hours

27
Methodology

• Teaching Experiments Framework (Cobb, 2000)
• Creating contexts for study
• Examine learning in authentic contexts
• Value messiness
• Focus on taken as shared meanings
• Generate usable knowledge
• Case Study Methodology (Stake, 1994)
• Observation, interviews, document analysis
  (Lincoln Guba, 1986)
• Triangulation of data sources
• Generate themes and assertions
• Yields petite generalizations

28
Data Sources

• Observations
• 1 teacher, 1 Researcher / teacher and 1 paid
  researcher
• Field notes (75 single spaced pages per case)
• Video tapes (when 2nd researcher not present)
• Interviews
• Media School Teachers (3 X 1 hour)
• 16 Students (1X 45 minutes)
• Formal Informal interviews
• Performance tasks (maps, timelines, interpretive)
• Document Analysis
• Daily log sheets
• Saved game files
• Presentations
• Student inscriptions

29
Data Analysis

• Naturalistic case study
• Written narratives (50-100 pages each)
• Identify themes and generate assertions
• Activity Theory analysis
• Characterize activity system
• Identify contradictions and core tensions
• Negotiate interpretations with participants
• Member check facts
• Share and comment on drafts

30
Curriculum

• Designed in collaboration with teacher
• Custom maps and scenario
• More accurate geography and civilizations
• Simplified game play
• Sped up game play
• Minor tweaks
• Supplementary readings
• Agriculture
• Civilizations vs. Barbarians
• More information about civilizations
• Activities
• Overarching project / presentation structure
• Help sheets
• Voting on civilizations,
• Mapping

31
What Happened?
Why am I doing this?
Replaying History
This game isnt bad
Purposeful Game Play
4
8
Day 1
12
17
32
Results Motivation

• Students did not immediately have goals
• Gaming experience
• Race, gender, class politics
• Some students never did
• Students developed differentiated goals
• Dan and Dwayne Rewrite history
• Rob Keep up with Dwayne
• Shirley, Larry Explore the globe
• Andrea Conquer and build
• Kevin, Larry Build a civilization
• Jason Master the game system
• Rewriting history was a motivator for many
  students
• Transgressive Play
• Testing theories

33
Results Game Play

• Typical Practices
• Studying geographical resources
• Evaluating the potential impact of technologies
• Building defense and waging war
• Testing theories of the game and history
• Monitoring multiple games
• Key decisions
• Guns vs. Butter?
• Isolationism vs. Trade?
• How do I expand?
• Do I go to war for luxuries?
• How do I prepare for colonization?
• Do I go to war?

34
Results Social Studies Practices

• Students asked many factual questions
• Students found the Civilopedia difficult to read
• What is monarchy? Monotheism? Democracy?
• Teacher busy with just-in-time lectures (CTGV,
  1992)
• Analysis reflection occurred in support of game
  play
• Which civilization should I be?
• Why is colonization not occurring?
• Whats unrealistic about the game? (teacher led)
• Key taken as shared moments
• Discovering Bering Strait and Greenland
• Colonial imperialism
• No horses in the Americas

35
Civilization Camp

• 5 Students
• 15 hours of play time
• Goal Present what you learned to peers
• Increase in structured activities
• Models vs. Simulations
• Historical assumptions of Civilization III
• Geographical determinism

36
Camp Presentations

• Students brainstormed key learning points
• Compiled points on post-its
• Cities flourish in river valleys
• Isolationism hurts technological development
• Your geography, economy, and foreign policy are
  all interrelated
• Organized into themes
• Presented to class

37
What has Civilization taught us about history?

• No matter how history play out in the real world,
  it plays by the same set of rules.
• How resources affected civilizations in the past.
• Why how colonization happened

Dujuan
38
Post-interview findings

• More robust timelines
• Increased familiarity with concepts
• More robust explanations of geographical
  processes
• Used game terms and concepts
• Connections across disciplines
• Perspective taking

39
Post-interview Findings

• Q Why did Europeans colonize Americas?
• All mentioned technologies, trade
• Native Americans did not colonize for cultural
  reasons
• Q Why is New York City bigger than Boston?
• None mentioned geography
• 8/8 mentioned immigration
• 5 / 8 Centers of trade
• Q What role were you in the game
• None said president, emperor
• All said game is unrealistic with no historical
  analog

40
Activity Theory Analysis Primary Contradictions

• Days 1-8
• Object Learning to play the game vs. learning
  social studies
• Civilization III as seductive object vs. foreign
  tool
• Tool Appropriation vs. resistance
• Days 9-17
• Object Succeeding in the game vs. reflective
  game play
• Tools Teacher as game resource vs. Facilitator
• Camp
• Object Civilization III as game vs. presentation
• Rules Community of game players vs. enforced
  rules

41
Core Contradictions
Pleasurable experience vs. Understanding social
studies
Teacher as a dictionary vs Concepts, maps,
historical record
Students vs Teachers
Playing Civilization III vs. Social Studies
Inquiry
Informal Groupings vs Communities of Practice
Collaborative Inquiry into game vs Inquiry into
social studies
Individualistic Goals vs School Norms
42
Activity Theory Analysis

• Secondary contradictions
• Rules Individualistic goals vs. Mandated
  Activity
• Game as complex tool vs. inadequate tools
  resources
• Implications
• Rules Change the rules or the object of the
  system
• Tools Maps and resources related to game play
• Students engaged in inquiry to help game play
• Studying games
• Studying maps
• Reflection on game play

43
YWCA Camp (in brief)

• Students all focused within 2 hours
• Group of girls played collaboratively
• Leaders in the class
• Contest over who could last the longest
• Interested in each others social networks
• Fashion of leaders very important
• James read the game off of history
• Brought books to class to cheat
• Tested theories of military power through the
  game
• Learned that war doesnt pay

44
Assertions

• Civilization III only one component of activity
• Also a function of social interactions
• Students goals / intentions
• Cultural norms and formal rules
• Appropriating Civilization III was a process
• Appropriation vs. Resistance Native Americans
• Game became a tool for Transgressive Play
• Failure produced engagement learning
• Losing forced me to learn about geography
• The game made me realize I had to trade
  technologies

45
Assertions

• Students learned world history through game play
• Familiarity with game vocabulary
• Understanding rules of geography
• Understanding interaction of rules
• Playing Civilization III mediated students
  understandings
• No matter how it plays out, history plays by the
  same set of rules.
• You cant separate geography from politics from
  history
• Playing Civilization III produced conceptual
  tools
• Peninsulas, islands, Gaza Strip, Nova Scotia
  tools
• Teachers and students language reappeared in
  interviews
• Isolationism, resources, horses in N. America,
  infrastructure
• Civilization III was a pedagogical tool when
  History was a cheat
• Studying map, Civilopeda
• Negotiating treaties and trading luxuries, and
  treaties
• Comparing games

46
Assertions

• Learning through game play is a social /
  interpretive process
• 8/8 responded that role of president was
  unrealistic
• Depends on questions, previous experiences
• Depends on rules, social organization
• Students recognized that Civilization III is a
  simulated system
• Students tested game against real world
• Students did not detect simulation bias
• Management orientation
• Geographical / Material reading of history

47
Implications

• Implicit tension between game learning
• Redesigning learning activities to be in service
  of game play
• Natural desire to share game experiences
• Simulated vs. Authentic Systems is problematic
• When do students believe the game?
• How do they make judgments about culture?
• Intrinsic Motivation? (Greeno, Resnick, 1996)
• A more cultural psychological notion of
  Intrinsic motivation
• Transgressive play and power fantasies
• Redesigning Civ III for classroom integration
• Designing simpler games
• More geographical language more conceptual
  tools
• How do we balance failure and success?
• If the medium is the message, then turning all
  social studies into games is a bad idea.

48
Next Steps

• Creating curriculum custom scenarios
• Clearer links to standards
• Create publish materials through Scholastic
• An educational version of the game
• Creating a network of teachers using games
• Self-organizing model
• Roller Coaster Tycoon, Sim City
• Sharing lesson plans, case studies
• More controlled research
• Experimental studies, comparisons

49
Next Steps Games-to-Teach Project

• Microsoft / MIT Comparative Media Studies
  initiative
• Designing developing next generation games
• 15 Conceptual prototypes
• 4 in development
• Strategic partners CMU, PBS, game developers,
  textbook publishers
• Games in development
• Supercharged - Physics (PC)
• Environmental Detectives - Environmental Science
  (Pocket PC)
• Colonial Williamsburg Online History (Networked
  PC)
• Hot Zone Emergency First Responders (PC)

50
Electromagnetism Supercharged!
51
(No Transcript)
52
(No Transcript)
53
Environmental Detectives
Computer simulation on handheld computer
triggered by real world location

• Combines physical world and virtual world
  contexts
• Embeds learners in authentic situations
• Engages users in a socially facilitated context

54
Drilling Wells
Dig Wells
Collect Data
Wait for Readings
55
Game Extensions

• New Adaptations
• Customize location, toxin, etc.
• New Dimensions
• Played across entire city
• Played across months or weeks
• Altered Spatial Scale
• Entire building represents human body
• New Domains
• Historical Simulations
• Walking the freedom trail
• Epidemiological Studies
• Tracking disease through population
• New Tools
• Authoring your own AR Simulations

56
Colonial Williamsburg
57
Questions

• Kurt Squire
• ksquire_at_mit.edu
• Games-to-Teach Project
• http//cms.mit.edu/games/education/

58
(No Transcript)
59
(No Transcript)
60
Approaches to Social Studies Education

• One best story (Seixas, 2000)
• Passively receive one true narrative
• Bears little resemblance to historical practice
• Produces apathy and resistance (McLaren, 1992)
• History frequently least favorite subject
  (Loewen, 1995)
• Often rejected when conflicts with lived
  experience (Wertsch, 2000)
• Purpose of social studies education
• What is it to think historically (Wineburg, 1999)
• College students vs. College faculty
• History vs. Heritage

61
Critical Approaches to Social Studies

• All history is political
• History is used to reify power relationships
• Social studies is the liberation of the oppressed
  (Friere, 1979 Giroux, 1986 McLaren, 1991
  Spring, 1984 Zinn, 1992)
• Identity is critical to social studies learning
• Multiplicity of narratives, experiences

62
Social Studies as Cultural Practice

• Inquiry is a social, political process
• The value of an approach to inquiry can be
  understood through the consequences of its use
  (Dewey, 1938)
• Narratives that do work
• Meet social and cultural aims
• Make indeterminate situations determinate
• Recognizes limitations of disciplinary boundaries
• Examines consequences of social studies education

63
(No Transcript)
64
Findings

• Key decisions
• Guns vs. Butter?
• Isolationism vs. Trade?
• How do I expand?
• Do I go to war for luxuries?
• How do I prepare for the meeting of
  civilizations?
• Do I conquer another civilization?
• Students asked many factual questions
• What is monarchy, ?
• Why is colonization not occurring?
• Students
• Analysis activities (Whats unrealistic about the
  game)
• Simulated system vs. Scripted events

65
Days 12-17 Purposeful Play

• Game Practices
• Negotiation of peace
• Trading technologies and luxuries
• Reading Civilopedia
• Asking about game concepts
• Game Tensions
• Where do I expand (colonization)
• What happens when I contact other continents?
• Key taken as shared moments
• Discovering Bering Strait and Greenland
• Colonial imperialism

66
Days 12-17 Purposeful Play

• Questions about game concepts
• Religion, governments
• Simulation and time 1492 passing by without
  colonization
• Students playing multiple games
• Most on 2nd and 3rd games
• In the 1800s and 1900s
• Amber avoids going to war
• Increased frustration (a good thing)
• Some students confused
• 3-4 still very confused
• Others have big questions

67
Assertions

• Implementation findings
• Civilization III was feasible, but problematic
• Several hours to learn the game
• 50 minute time periods seemed problematic