Principal Investigator: Dr. Beaumie Kim
This study is a research project on redesigning the board game Inversé and Triominos for mathematics learning and aims to develop students' understanding of mathematical thinking by using gameplay and design activities. The study used a design-based research approach and was conducted in a culturally and linguistically diverse school in Western Canada. The students were tasked with creating 2D versions of the Inversé board game during the first year, which was aligned with the local mathematics curriculum. During the second year, the students redesigned the Triominos game to explore different shapes (i.e., triangle, rectangle, square, rhombus) and their properties.
The study specifically looked at how the collaborative game redesign approach provided structural conditions for the students to communicate their ideas and develop shared goals and understandings and how the groups used mathematical constructs in creating systems of meaningful interaction and play. From a different perspective, our analysis revealed embodied discourses that emerged through the project. These embodied discourses could help students with limited English proficiency to become a designer of a board game while meaningfully participating in mathematics learning, making the most of their cultural and linguistic resources.
Read more about this project here: Kim, Bastani & Takeuchi, 2021; Kim & Bastani, 2020; Bastani, 2022; Jaques et al., 2019
Examples of students' redesigned games
Blockade
Using ideas from the ancient Chinese game Go, this group redesigned Inversé. This process was led by an English language learner, newly arrived from China. In their game, players take turns drawing a rectangle on empty spaces on a grid board to block the opponent. The player who could surround at least one of the opponent’s rectangles would be the winner of the game.
This article provides an analysis of this group's game redesign process.
Extreme Versé
In redesigning Inversé, this group created a 3-player game in which players placed prepared pieces on empty spaces on the board in a way that same colors (i.e., a player’s own pieces) and same shapes would not touch. Therefore, players needed to consider both their own pieces (same color pieces) on the board and the opponents’ same size pieces when deciding where to fit their new piece. The last person to fit a piece was the winner.
This article provides an analysis of this group's game redesign process.
For a more elaborate analysis please visit: https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/114560
Markit
Their redesigned game need players to roll dice to determine the length and width of their rectangular piece, and draw the piece where they could find estimated spaces. In drawing their rectangles, players have to touch other pieces’ corners (and only their corners and not their sides). Players need to be strategic in drawing their rectangles on the game's grid board considering this rule to be the last one who could fit a piece and win the game.
This article provides an analysis of this group's game redesign process.
For a more elaborate analysis please visit: https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/114560
Publications on this project
Kim, B., Bastani, R., & Takeuchi, M. A. (2023). Embodied mathematical practices in (re)designing board games in a linguistically diverse classroom. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 18(2), 289-310. https://doi.org/10.1080/1554480X.2021.2013232
Baradaran Rahimi, F., & Kim, B. (2021). Learning Through Re-designing a Game in the STEM Classroom. Simulation & Gaming, 52(6), 753-774. https://doi.org/10.1177/10468781211039260
Kim, B., Baradaran Rahimi, F., & Dadkhahfard, S. (2021). Materiality of Tabletop Games: Emergence of Learners’ Designs and Mathematical Problems. In Selected Proceedings of the 6th International STEM in Education Conference. Vancouver, Canada: University of British Columbia Press.
Baradaran Rahimi, F., Kim, B., & Dadkhahfard, S. (2020). Design Practice and Learning: (Re)Designing a Tabletop Game in a STEM Classroom. In Selected Proceedings of the 14th International Conference of the Learning Sciences (pp. 1791-92). Nashville, USA: Vanderbilt University Press.
Kim, B., Bastani, R., Baradaran Rahimi, F., & Dadkhahfard, S. (2020). Finding Opportunities to Pursue Interest in the Classroom: Contrasting Two Cases of Redesigning Tabletop Games. In Selected Proceedings of the 14th International Conference of the Learning Sciences (pp. 1613-16). Nashville, USA: Vanderbilt University Press.
Kim, B., Bastani, R., & Baradaran Rahimi, F., Dadkhahfard, S. (2020). Materiality and Mathematics Learning in Tabletop Game Redesign. In Selected Proceedings of the Canadian Society for the Study of Education Annual Conference 2020. London, Canada: Western University Press.
Baradaran Rahimi, F., Dadkhahfard, S., & Kim, B. (2019). Exploring Mathematical Concepts in Re-designing Tabletop Games. In Selected Proceedings of the IDEAS 2019: Transforming Pedagogies/Learn – Design – Innovate. Calgary, Canada: University of Calgary Press.
Bastani, R. (2022). Design for learning through a complexity perspective: a board game redesign approach to enabling learning possibilities (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca
Bastani, R., & Kim, B. (2020). Learners’ emergent designs for play: Game design as mathematical modeling practices. In M. Gresalfi & I. S. Horn (Eds.), The Interdisciplinarity of the Learning Sciences, 14th International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS) 2020 (Vol. 3, pp. 1445–1452).
Jaques, S., Kim, B., Shyleyko-Kostas, A., & Takeuchi, M. A. (2019). I just won against myself!: Fostering early numeracy through boardgame play and redesign. Early Childhood Education, 46(1), 22-29. http://hdl.handle.net/1880/111252