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Contributor(s): Katrin Becker
Date issued: 2006
Description: An important step towards gaining an understanding of how a particular medium can be used most effectively in education is to study its outstanding examples, regardless of their original purpose. It is assumed that “good” games already embody sound pedagogy in their designs even if that incorporation was not deliberate (Becker, 2006). The work described here will examine commercially and critically successful video games as though they had been designed as learning objects. Through this perspective, it is possible to identify and classify built-in learning objectives and from there to associate the mechanisms and strategies employed to teach them. A significant outcome of this work will...
Type: presentations (communicative events)
Appears in collection(s): Science and Technology

Contributor(s): Katrin Becker
Date issued: 2003
Description: Students in first year often begin with dramatically different backgrounds and abilities. In an effort to address the needs of all, varying levels of completion (stages) can be described in the assignment specifications.
Type: presentations (communicative events)
Appears in collection(s): Science and Technology

Contributor(s): Katrin Becker
Date issued: 2006
Description: This presentation is intended to fulfill two goals: 1. To show that many commercial games, the successful ones at least, already implement sound pedagogy when it comes to how they get players to learn the game and how they facilitate gameplay. 2. To encourage critical examination of successful video games, to learn how this has been done, so that we may use that information to build engaging educational games.
Type: presentations (communicative events)
Appears in collection(s): Science and Technology

Contributor(s): Katrin Becker
Date issued: 2003
Description: Rubrics are a relatively well understood assessment instrument, although it doesn't appear to be heavily used in CSE. "Learning increases, even in its serendipitous aspects, when learners have a sense of what they are setting out to learn, a statement of explicit standards they must meet, and a way of seeing what they have learned." [Loac86] "Assessment requires [faculty] to articulate... explicit and public statements of criteria of performance. By doing so, faculty refine their own understanding of expected abilities, clarify for their colleagues the basis of their judgment, and enable students to understand what performance is required."
Type: posters
Appears in collection(s): Science and Technology

Contributor(s): Katrin Becker
Date issued: 1983; 1983
Description: The research outlined in this thesis deals primarily with the introductory computer science curriculum (i.e. the first two years). The topics and objectives are outlined first. This is the body of information that a finishing second year student should be expected to know. The results of the questionnaire given to computer science department members are discussed and then tools used for teaching computer science, both current and future, are describe.
Type: thesis
Appears in collection(s): Science and Technology

Contributor(s): Katrin Becker
Date issued: 2005
Description: This paper outlines an approach to helping mid-program undergraduates conduct cutting-edge research that can be incorporated into almost any program with
Type: presentations (communicative events)
Appears in collection(s): Science and Technology

Contributor(s): Katrin Becker
Date issued: 2006
Description: Jerome Bruner has helped to shape the notion of constructivism, which is of prime significance when looking at pedagogy in games and much of the learning that occurs in games is constructive. In one of his more recent works, “The Culture of Education” (1996), he discusses the importance of nine tenets to the development and maintenance of culture. Many of these touch on recurring themes in many discussions of games (Beavis, 1999; Kafai, 2001; Wolf & Perron, 2003). Bruner believes that “education is not an island, but part of the continent of culture.” (1996, p11) The same can be said of games. Bruner’s tenets guide such a ‘psycho-cultural’ approach to education and this paper will examine...
Type: presentations (communicative events)
Appears in collection(s): Science and Technology

Contributor(s): Katrin Becker
Date issued: 2008
Description: We have always appropriated whatever technologies are available to us for use as technologies for instruction. This practice may well date back as far as human communication itself. The practice of “studying the masters” is also an old and respected one, and using this perspective we can take advantage of the opportunities afforded us in studying outstanding examples of commercial digital games as “educational” objects, even if they weren’t produced by professional educators. By examining successful games through this lens we can progress towards an understanding of the essential elements of ‘good’ games and begin to discuss the implications this holds for the deliberate design of...
Type: book chapter
Appears in collection(s): Science and Technology

MROAR: Mount Royal Open Access Repository