A Critical Evaluation of History Gamification
Dungeons and Dragons-style gameplay is a natural form that lends itself to the Twine platform. Immersive storytelling is compelling, especially when one gets to make their own choices on how the story unfolds. This is especially true of young learners tackling abstract concepts from hundreds of years ago as the discipline of history demands. I recently played a Twine game entitled “The Mines of Tos Mett,” that told the story of a dwarf clan that set out to find more abundant veins of precious metal. Alas! They discovered that they needed the financial patronage of the lord of their homeland to sustain them. This game was really about the early American colonies and the same dilemma in which that found themselves in the new New World. Indeed, it required the aid of the King of England as the Dwarves did of Elder Gregor. While I know that this is the case because I know a little history, some direct instruction would be needed for younger students. This information would be vital to contextualize some of this semiotic domain considering the narrative itself is not the internal grammar per se, but the underlying thematic story. This game is an early draft and certainly has potential. Summoning my inner 5th-grader, for whom this game was designed, I would say that the lack of media makes for a less engaging experience. Moreover, many of the choices that I selected resulted in incomplete storylines. But I can imagine how exciting and immersive this game could be with some well-placed pictures of weather-hardened Dwarves and images of their stressful life.
However compelling, I am unclear how I did or if I had learned anything by the game itself—speaking as a 5th-grader. Perhaps more feedback internal to the game can be designed that could target the external grammar of this discipline. As my colleague who created this has said, this game fits into a broader assessment that requires some direct instruction to contextualize and other tools for feedback. He mentioned verbally speaking with students about their decisions and taking a separate assessment at the end of the game. In the game’s current form, this is certainly needed. As is the case in my attempt at creating a history game, my own focused on the internal grammar of the content but gave little for external grammar and built-in feedback. According to my assessment checklist, this game in its current form does not fulfill critical aspects that I articulated as core values. Much like my own, the “The Mines of Tos Mett” by itself provides little space for critical thinking, creativity, choice (beyond the obvious tools native to Twine), or opportunities for self-regulation. There may be some space for feedback on task and process, especially on the broader lesson design.
It may be history or just me, but designing games that fulfill all that we have learned about assessment is incredibly hard in this semiotic domain. I can see students acting as Archaeologist or Historians fulfilling these ideals, but both this game and my own do not achieve the depths of assessment covered. Reflecting on aspects of assessment, a critical element to making these games successful must be the ability to provide feedback and authentic critical thinking leading to transference into new domains according to UBD (Understanding by Design). While there is much potential for “The Mines of Tos Mett,” figuring out how to create an authentic assessment of external grammar for history and internal feedback through the gameplay is the next step. The same is true of my own game, “Death is Coming: A Black Death Survival Story.”
Games are compelling and have the potential of making that which is abstract, real, exciting, and relevant. Cracking the code for Gamification will lead to new frontiers of deep learning for students.
Historians, join me in continuing the struggle.
