Blog #3

As our group worked together developing a rubric for evaluating the quality of a serious game, the main challenge was in combining and rewording our criteria so that it was concise and measurable.  After a couple of discussions, we put together, what I believe, is a well-developed and well-thought out set of criteria.  As a group, we believe that the game should have as priorities, "challenges", "encouragement", "learning", "entertainment", "problem solving components", and "collaboration".  The rationale for these rubric categories is that we wanted the game to be fun, meet the objectives that teachers want for their classrooms, and to make sure the students grew and matured through the playing of games.  As a teacher, it is often difficult to balance learning with fun.  If there is too much fun and not much content, games can be a waste of time, but if there is no fun in the game, students become disinterested and disengaged.  Therefore, our group searched for ways to keep students interested, but learn at the same time.  The rubric objectives do not include the word "fun" in them, but we believe that by challenging students, engaging them, using "real life" problem solving, and working together; students will have fun and enjoy being a part of the storyline of the game.  The above objectives also allow the teacher to meet their learning objectives as well.  I guess, in a sense, we are putting students in a situation where learning takes place, fun is a natural result of the game, and both the student and teacher have a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction at the end of the game. 

I especially liked how well our group worked together on this project by adding ideas to the skeletal rubric until it became fully developed.  

Again, I have a tendency to ask lots of questions to get classmates to think through their ideas (the teacher in me does that), as well as ask questions for answers that I have no idea about. A few things that I brought up that I thought were worth considering when designing out rubric were:  "How can we make our rubric more measurable for teachers?" and "How can we change the wording to our objectives to make it concrete and succinct and not ambiguous?"  I also tried to be an encouragement to other members of the group and applaud their ideas.