Games and the art of agency

Games may seem like a waste of time, where we struggle under artificial rules for arbitrary goals. The author suggests that the rules and goals of games are not arbitrary at all. They are a way of specifying particular modes of agency. This is what make games a distinctive art form. Game designers designate goals and abilities for the player; they shape the agential skeleton which the player will inhabit during the game. Game designers work in the medium of agency. Game-playing, then, illuminates a distinctive human capacity. We can take on ends temporarily for the sake of the experience of pursuing them. Game play shows that our agency is significantly more modular and more fluid than we might have thought. It also demonstrates our capacity to take on an inverted motivational structure. Sometimes we can take on an end for the sake of the activity of pursuing that end

Developing Mathematics Enrichment Workshops for Middle School Students: Philosophy and Sample Workshops

This paper describes our approach to organizing enrichment activities using advanced mathematics topics for diverse audiences of middle school students. We discuss our philosophy and approaches for the structure of these workshops, and then provide sample schedules and resource materials. The workshops cover activities on the following topics: Graphing Calculators; The Chaos Game; Statistical Sampling; CT Scans–the reconstruction problem; The Platonic and Archimedean solids; The Shape of Space; Symmetry; The Binary Number System and the game of NIM; Graph Theory: Proof by Counterexample

Gophers: socially oriented pervasive gaming

Gophers is an open-ended gaming environment which relies on location data, user generated content and player interactions to shape gameplay. It seeks to investigate social collaboration within localised and distributed gaming communities, the potential of pervasive gaming as a technique to collect useful data about the physical world and additionally, use of novel peer-judging methods to allow self-governing of the game world. In this paper, we introduce the game in its current state and provide an overview of early test results

Effects of Game-Based Learning Management on Learning Achievement in Mathemathics of Geometric Shape and Volume of Rectangular Shape for 6th Grade Students of Srinakharinwirot University Prasarnmit Demonstration School (Elementary)

The purpose of this research was to create and determine the efficiency of game-based learning lesson plan on mathematics learning achievement of geometric shape and volume of rectangular shape, to compare learning achievement before and after game-based learning management, and to study satisfaction towards game-based learning management. The samples of the study were 60 students of 6th grade at Srinakharinwirot University Prasarnmit Demonstration School (Elementary) in 2nd semester of 2022, which was obtained by purposive sampling. The tools used were 5 game-based learning lesson plans for 6th grade students (15 periods), a 30-item mathematics learning achievement test of 6th grade students and a satisfaction questionnaire on game-based learning management. The research design was the one group pretest-posttest and the statistics used were efficiency determination E1/E2, mean, standard deviation, and t-test for dependent sample. The research results were as follows: 1) The efficiency of process of game-based learning lesson plan which was developed for 6th grade students was 87.71 and the efficiency of product was 80.44 which complied to the defined criteria of 80/80; 2) After game-based learning management, 6th grade students had higher mathematics learning achievement of geometric shape and volume of rectangular shape than that of before learning at the statistical significance level of .01; 3) After game-based learning management, 6th grade students were satisfied with game-based learning management of geometric shape and volume of rectangular shape at the highest level