I'm sure they will enjoy playing the games more than slowly designing something - that is why I want to outline a specific process of steps to get them started so even the least creative kid could come up with a general rule set for a working game. I also want to allow flexibility for the more creative kids to go to town and toss out some of my steps to follow their own process as long as it is something that will produce results.
My tentative idea is to have 1 or 2 class periods each week of the 9 week long class be dedicated to specifically working on the game creation. The other 3-4 days would be organized around playing games/solving puzzles etc. Then the game design bit would basically be a final project. Thinking about it now though it may be difficult to design something like that in a 9 week course - in that case I might need to adapt my "final project" to something like design an expansion for an existing game. It might be amusing to have them do the art and create new dice rules for Buttonmen or make expansion cards for Bang! or something along those lines.
My audience will also be of various levels, from LD, to BD, to gifted kids and everything in between. I'm hoping to make some sort of checklist for behavior and grades to give to the LD/BD teachers and have them evaluate a few kids each nine weeks so I can gather some statistics on if we see any improvement in behavior and/or social skills after taking the class versus before. It might be useful data to aid in getting a grant or other funding down the line to either expand the program or convince other area schools the program was worthwhile.
Or perhaps the data will show me the program effects no change and it is a waste of class time. who knows.
-Ryan
On 2/21/07,
Magi D. Shepley <magid@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
This is fantastic, Ryan! Both I and the other technology education
teacher (my first year there were two of us) at the private school I
left did major units on game design. In my case, it was a way of
working on critical thinking skills (your idea, as well, I see!),
problem solving skills and social skills. Students worked in groups to
modify an existing game or to create their own game. I allowed them to
modify existing games because of the population I was working with... I
was at a private school for children with special needs, and within the
school, had the groups (mostly boys!) with the most severe emotional and
behavioral disabilities. These kids didn't leave their classrooms, so I
taught Tech Ed on a cart! That was tons of fun when we had the blizzard
in February and then all the rain we had that spring, because half of my
kids were in a totally separate building! In any case, the other
teacher had obtained a reusable kit for designing a board game, but I'm
afraid I don't remember the name of the kit. The projects were
interesting to most of the kids, but they infinitely preferred PLAYING
the games I brought in (Fluxx, Mille Bournes, Pit, Uno, Mastermind,
Sett, Rack-O, Life, and MouseTrap) to creating their own.
Magi
--
Ora, lege, lege, lege, relege, labora et invenies.