A Pilot Study on Teacher-Facing Real-Time Classroom Game Dashboards

TL;DR

This study develops and evaluates a real-time classroom game dashboard for teachers, demonstrating its usefulness and usability through participatory design and pilot testing in actual classroom settings.

Contribution

It introduces a participatory design process for creating a teacher-facing game data dashboard and provides initial evidence of its feasibility and effectiveness in real classrooms.

Findings

Teachers found the dashboard useful during gameplay.

The dashboard was usable and feasible for classroom use.

Participatory design improved the tool's relevance and usability.

Abstract

Educational games are an increasingly popular teaching tool in modern classrooms. However, the development of complementary tools for teachers facilitating classroom gameplay is lacking. We present the results of a participatory design process for a teacher-facing, real-time game data dashboard. This two-phase process included a workshop to elicit teachers' requirements for such a tool, and a pilot study of our dashboard prototype. We analyze post-gameplay survey and interview data to understand teachers' experiences with the tool in terms of evidence of co-design, feasibility, and effectiveness. Our results indicate the participatory design yielded a tool both useful for and usable by teachers within the context of a real class gameplay session. We advocate for the continued development of data-driven teacher tools to improve the effectiveness of games deployed in the classroom.