Story Mode for Teaching Cross-Curricular Coding Projects

In previous R&D, the developers created codeSpark Academy, a game that employs a visual and block-based approach with puzzles to teach coding skills to students ages 5- to 9-years old. codeSpark Academy is in widespread use in and out of schools around the world. In this Phase II project, the team expanded the app to include more features, curriculum, and training to support teachers in integrating computational thinking and coding concepts across different lesson plans in English language arts, social studies, and when students do book reports. In particular, the team developed pretend-play scenarios that include characters, storylines, and incentives to further engage students, including young girls, and the team also made connections to learning goals more explicit. The final game includes user-created and uploaded photographic backgrounds for students to customize gameplay by representing people, locations, and events at their own school or throughout history. Students can code "what-if" histories using a conditional based choose-your-own outcome feature, as well as different storylines using the figures they create.

After development concluded, the researchers conducted a pilot study to assess the feasibility and usability, fidelity of implementation, and the promise of Story Mode to increase students' coding and computational skills over a 9-week period. The sample included 11 educators and 259 students, with 6 of the classes randomly assigned to use Story Mode and the other 5 to use business-as-usual activities. Researchers compared pre-and-posttest scores of students' learning outcomes associated to computer science.