The GlobalEd 2 Game: Developing Scientific Literacy Skills through
Interdisciplinary, Technology-based Simulations
Kimberly Lawless
University of Illinois at Chicago
United States
klawless@uic.edu
Scott Brown and Mark Boyer
University of Connecticut
United States
scott.brown@uconn.edu
mark.boyer@uconn.edu
GloablEd2 Project Team
UConn & UIC
United States
kbrodo1@uic.edu
GlobalEd2 (GE2) is a set of socio-scientific, role-playing simulations that
capitalize on the multidisciplinary nature of social studies as an expanded curricular
space to engage middle school students with science-based content. Making use of an
Oracle-based Internet communications system and a simulation-specific, web-based
research environment, GE2 links classrooms of students, otherwise isolated from one
another by physical distance and socio-economic boundaries, in synchronous and
asynchronous communications.
Within each GE2 simulation, approximately 12-18 middle-school classrooms are
recruited and assigned to represent specific countries (role play). Each classroom is
assigned one country to represent throughout the simulation. Each simulation is
supported by a set of three curricular components: a) the problem scenario; b) the
simulation resources and materials, and c) four issue areas within the simulation. The
problem scenario is a document that provides background information about a current
problem somewhere (or multiple places) in the world with specific scientific details that
would lead the participating countries in the simulation to have to take timely action. It
sets the common context for all the countries in the simulation, anchoring interactions
among students. The resources and materials for each simulation consist of documents,
online sources and websites pertaining directly to various aspects of the problem
scenario, as well as country resources, provided on the GE2 website.
There are four (4) issue areas embedded within each simulation that address
dimensions of the socio-scientific negotiations (environment, Human Rights, Economics
and Health). These issue areas form the basis upon which a participating classroom
breaks into smaller collaborative working groups to prepare for the simulation and to
engage in the negotiations. These four issue areas are consistent across all the classrooms
in the simulation, enabling the students from one issue area to communicate with their
counterparts in another classroom. It is important to note that the collaborative group
work occurs both within the issue groups and across the entire country-team. From a
decision-making perspective, the simulation goal for each country is the development of
an agreement addressing the scenario problem with at least one other country (or multiple
countries), but a country’s proposed approach must address, and have the support of, all
four, issue area groups within their country. Thus, although negotiations may take place
between the specific issue groups across countries, it is necessary that these four issue
groups are also negotiating within the class/country and come to consensus in
representing the unified policy stance of the entire country.
There are three phases of the simulation lasting 14 weeks. The first phase, the
Research Phase, is six weeks and requires the students to use text and web resources to
research the simulation scenario issues. During this phase, students must identify the key
scientific issues of concern, as well as how their assigned country’s culture, political
system, geography and economy influence their science perspectives. Additionally,
students must also become familiar with the policies of the other countries included in the
simulation in order to develop initial arguments and plan for potential collaborations. As
the outcome of the Research Phase, students in each classroom work collaboratively to
develop an opening policy statement (scientific arguments) containing their national
position across each of the four issue areas and how they wish to start addressing the
international problem presented in the scenario with other countries who will also be
negotiating within the simulation. These opening statements range in length from 200500 words, though some detailed statements may be longer. Statements are then shared as
documents within the online GE2 communication system and serve to launch Phase 2, the
interactive negotiations among countries.
Throughout the six weeks of the Interactive Phase (Phase 2), students work within
their class to refine their arguments and negotiate international agreements with the other
“countries,” sharing them online, in an asynchronous format similar to email. Based on
prior implementations, the number of communications exchanged during the Interactive
Phase can exceed 8,000 (though length varies from a single sentence to longer multiparagraph exchanges). Both the content and negotiations among the countries
participating within this phase of the simulation are student-driven and dynamic, as the
simulations are designed to engage participants in ill-structured and dynamic problem
solving. As such, while the larger context for the simulation is set by the problem
scenario, what and how students negotiate emerges from their interactions with one
another.
The culminating event of the Interactive Phase is the posting of each country’s
closing statement, reflecting the final position of each country-team on the four issue
areas. Students work collaboratively within their country-team issue area to construct
these closing arguments, articulating points of agreement and topics where continued
work is necessary among the participating countries. These closing arguments are then
shared with the other participants in the simulation, marking the start of the third phase of
the GE2 experience, Debriefing.
The Debriefing Phase lasts two weeks and is designed to activate metacognitive
processes in students as they review what they learned and how they can apply this new
science content knowledge and associated skills in other contexts and domains. AN
online moderator from the GE2 staff facilitates a scheduled on-line debriefing conference
with all students and countries represented in the simulation, exploring issues related to
learning outcomes, simulation processes, transfer, and feedback. Teachers are also trained
to perform multiple debriefing activities within their classrooms to promote
metacognition, learning and transfer. These include educational activities, such as
analyzing the “behind-the-scenes” negotiations available to students after the simulation
ends, writing final essays about the experience, examining local water resource issues or
completing other tasks aimed at relating the experience back to the educational context
and the real world of environmental sustainability in both local and global affairs.
It is extremely important to note, all interactions in GE2 are text-based – a
purposive design decision for two reasons. First, the written artifacts the students produce
(e.g., opening/closing statements and online negotiations) are a means of making
students’ thinking visible on a consistent basis, providing an avenue for teachers and
researchers to formatively assess students engagement, scientific thinking, writing,
leadership and problem solving. GE2 teachers are trained in the use of these written
interactions as an evaluative tool during their PD and are provided assessment rubrics in
the GE2 curricular materials to facilitate this process. Secondly, the use of this
anonymous written communication mode allows educators to hold some factors in the
educational context neutral (e.g., personal appearance, gender, race, verbal
communication abilities and accents). Students only identify themselves within GE2 as
country, issue and initials; for example, “ChinaEnvSWB” (China’s environmental
negotiator SWB), blinding their actual identities to students outside their classroom. As a
result, typical stereotypes, associated with gender, race or socio-economic class are
minimized as factors influencing the interactions among participants.
Empirical Support for the Intervention
To date, the GE2 curriculum has been implemented in urban and suburban 7th and
8th grade social studies classrooms for the past three years. In total, GE2 has serviced
approximately 1400 middle grade students and their respective social studies teachers.
The program has been piloted in both suburban middle income and urban low-income
schools, using a mixed model. Geographic sites are distinguished in terms of their
proportion of students of color and socio-economic status.
In this presentation, we provide evidence of GE2’s promise for impacting two
critical proximal outcomes; written scientific explanation and interest in pursuing future
science education and career opportunities. The findings reported also suggest that GE2
could potentially close known male/female and urban/suburban achievement gaps in
these areas.
Before, and immediately after engaging in the GE2 curriculum, students in the
pilot studies responded to an open-ended measure of scientific explanation patterned after
those collected on standardized state tests of writing. It required students to respond to a
prompt (e.g., “The world is in danger of running out of fresh water. Do you agree or
disagree with this statement? Why?”). Instructions directed students to use scientific
evidence and reasoning to support their responses. Two independent raters, blinded to
student identity and time of administration, scored student essays and reached 95%
agreement, with differences being resolved in conference. Empirical findings from pilot
work during the development of GE2 indicate significant positive outcomes for written
scientific explanation with moderate to strong effects (d=.43-.69). Results also indicated a
differential impact of GE2 between urban and suburban students with respect to written
explanation quality. Effect sizes ranged from d=.30 for suburban females to d=.69 for
urban males.
In addition to written scientific explanation, across implementations, an increase
in interest in pursuing science educational opportunities and careers in the future was also
identified. The interest scale consisted of eight Likert-type items with a five-point
response scale (1=not at all interested, 5=very interested). Table 2 contains sample items
from this measure. Based on data obtained from an independent sample of middle school
students, Cronbach alpha reliability estimates for this instrument were found exceeding
.85 (Brown, et al., 2011). As was the case with written scientific explanation, the interest
measure was implemented in a pre-post format. Although data across all strata indicated
small overall increase in interest (d~.15), larger impacts were obtained among female
students (d=.21) and urban males (d=.35).