ISTE21 Submission: When Game-Based Learning and the Learning Sciences Collide

Reviewer Details

The links below are intended to provide more information on the Course of Mind Sims project, from which the insights for this presentation are drawn.

1. Some background on the Course of Mind Sims project.

Course of Mind Interactive Case Studies

About the “Leap into the Learning Sciences” Course

Learning is a complex process that involves your brain, your personal history, your entire body, and your environment. The learning sciences can help us understand how we learn, what we can do to improve learning, and why some instructional strategies work better than others.

Developed as part of ISTE's learning sciences initiative, Course of Mind, Leap into Learning Sciences  provides an introduction to the learning sciences for educators and edtech and instructional specialists. The primary intent of the course is to help educators use the learning sciences to make learning more effective, efficient, and inclusive, both with and without educational technology.

About the interactive case studies

Each of the two “Sims” is an  interactive case study where players investigate a classroom to find clues related to a learning issue, connect those clues to related factors from the learning sciences, and then choose a set of strategies to address what they have found.

The case studies use an intriguing mashup of comic books, detective sleuthing, and strategy card-game play.  They reflect learning-science best practices in their design, and are inspired by learning-game design concepts. 

Links to play each of the Sims:

Case of the Missing Motivation

Case of the Assignment Gone Awry