Jo Wilder and the Capitol Case: A taxonomy of uses for a historical inquiry game in 4th grade Classrooms in Wisconsin

TL;DR

This study explores how Wisconsin elementary teachers used a historical inquiry game in classrooms, identifying five instructional purposes that influence game integration and informing future educational game design.

Contribution

The paper introduces a taxonomy of five distinct instructional purposes for using a historical inquiry game in elementary classrooms, based on empirical data from teacher reports.

Findings

Five instructional purposes identified for game use.

Teachers adapt the game to diverse curriculum goals.

Insights into designing educational games and professional development.

Abstract

In this paper, we study the various ways 3rd-5th grade educators in Wisconsin utilized Jo Wilder and the Capitol Case, a historical inquiry game, as part of their classroom instruction. The 15 educators involved in the study were all grade school teachers in Wisconsin who took part in the "Doing History Fellowship" program, a professional development opportunity offered by the authors, designed to increase their understanding of historical inquiry instruction and game-based learning. As part of the program, the educators planned and implemented the game within their own classroom context and reported their results back to the authors and other educators. Through their reports, surveys and semi-structured interviews we discovered the educators were motivated by five distinct instructional purposes, which influenced how the game was integrated into their curriculum. In this paper, we name and describe these five purposes. We see these findings as useful insights into how educators think about games and how educational video games and corresponding professional development activities may be designed in the future.