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From Mario to FIFA: what qualitativecase study research suggests aboutgames-based learning in a US classroomHannah R. Gerbera, Sandra Schamroth Abramsb, Anthony J.Onwuegbuziec & Cindy L. Bengea

a Department of Language, Literacy, and Special Populations, SamHouston State University, Huntsville, TX, USAb Department of Curriculum and Instruction, St. John’s University,Queens, New York, USAc Department of Educational Leadership and Counseling, SamHouston State University, Huntsville, TX, USAPublished online: 04 Mar 2014.

To cite this article: Hannah R. Gerber, Sandra Schamroth Abrams, Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie& Cindy L. Benge (2014): From Mario to FIFA: what qualitative case study research suggestsabout games-based learning in a US classroom, Educational Media International, DOI:10.1080/09523987.2014.889402

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09523987.2014.889402

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From Mario to FIFA: what qualitative case study researchsuggests about games-based learning in a US classroom

Hannah R. Gerbera*, Sandra Schamroth Abramsb, Anthony J. Onwuegbuziec andCindy L. Bengea

aDepartment of Language, Literacy, and Special Populations, Sam Houston State University,Huntsville, TX, USA; bDepartment of Curriculum and Instruction, St. John’s University,Queens, New York, USA; cDepartment of Educational Leadership and Counseling, SamHouston State University, Huntsville, TX, USA

(Received 10 September 2013; final version received 27 December 2013)

This article explores the impact of using commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS)videogames in a high school curriculum when developed through a connectedlearning frame by examining the influence that COTS videogames have on trans-forming students’ literacy learning in-school. However, it must be noted thattransforming literacy in school is about more than bridging in- and out-of-schoolliteracies; it concerns developing a deeper understanding of the meaning of liter-acy in today’s multimediated world, and the ways that these experiences are con-nected not only to media, but to traditional texts, peers, and guiding teachers, sothat we can better grasp how to harness new learning styles and new ways ofmaking meaning in contemporary classroom spaces. To understand how tocapture in and out-of-school practices, we conducted a qualitative case study oftwo high school students enrolled in a reading intervention class that incorpo-rated a COTS videogames curriculum. Data were analyzed via a constant com-parison analysis. Findings indicated that the games-based curriculum createdthrough a connected learning frame enabled students to engage in a constellationof connections among digital media, traditional texts, peers, and guidingteachers.

Keywords: games-based learning; commercial-off-the-shelf videogames;videogames; literacy; adolescent literacy

IntroductionGames-based learning (GBL) is a new concept that brings videogames – sometimescommercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) videogames – into the curriculum. Researchershave theorized that GBL can be used to enhance student learning in class-relatedactivities (Abrams, 2009; Gerber & Price, 2011; Squire, 2011; Steinkuehler, Comp-ton-Lily, & King, 2011) as well as influence and impact a player’s learning in out-of-school spaces (Gee, 2007; Gee & Hayes, 2011). In many GBL experiences,COTS videogames are brought into classroom learning, or after-school and out-of-school spaces, and tied in with learning standards and/or learning objectives. It isposited that students exhibit growth and increased engagement with their topic ofstudy due to the inclusion of COTS games in learning and an awareness of their

*Corresponding author. Email: hrg004@shsu.edu

© 2014 International Council for Educational Media

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out-of-school literacy practices (Van Eck, 2006). However, because these games rep-resent COTS games (i.e. not games that have a specific link to a specific content orlearning area, or have been built specifically for learning and to meet learning objec-tives, known as serious games), controversy often surrounds whether a transfer oflearning/knowledge exists, or whether it is the social learning that holds importancefor the students’ learning gains (Gee, 2007). However, a social constructionist lensshifts the focus from transfer to co-constructed meaning making, thereby supportingthe examination of student learning in terms of connections within and acrossliteracy experiences.

Literature reviewGames-based literacy learningAs mentioned previously, GBL is an approach that infuses videogames in learningactivities and lessons within and throughout the curriculum. The videogames thatare used vary from COTS videogames to videogames specifically built and designedfor a particular content area or class. COTS videogames are valuable as resources touse in GBL due to their availability and affordability. These games often are avail-able for purchase as downloads online, or in hard disc form from chain retail storesand from videogame specific stores. They can be used in a variety of ways: stationsset up to allow students to play different games related to the curriculum, or forwhole-class play and/or for the teacher to use in whole-class demonstrations on con-tent and material. Drawbacks include inappropriate content and/or unrelated mate-rial. Games created specifically for educational purposes can be beneficial in GBL ifthey are well-designed to include learning objectives of the content to be studiedwithout losing the game mechanics that make games successful. Yet, games built foreducation run the risk of assuming edutainment features, thereby appearing as game-like imposters. Well-designed educational games also are extremely expensive, theytypically have one focus (e.g. environmental awareness), and they have yet toreceive the same fan-based notoriety or accolades as do COTS.

GBL presupposes understandings of literacy that extend beyond traditional print.Videogame playing is an inherently multimodal activity that requires players tointerpret and to respond to a multiplicity of modes, including on-screen images,sounds, and movement. Situated meanings, player interaction, and gaming contextsinfluence the ways in which gamers use and interpret these modes (Jewitt, 2005). Assuch, videogaming is a highly nuanced learning experience that hinges on complex,agentive interactions. As Squire (2008) concluded, “To be literate in the gamingmedium means to be able to do things with games … Games push our theoreticalnotions of learning and literacy, firmly unseparating knowing from doing” (p. 651).

In relation to classroom literacy, GBL offers opportunities for students to engagein experiential learning across the context of the game and the classroom. Van Eck(2006) explains that when COTS are integrated into classroom learning, teacherscan

augment the game with instructional activities that preserve the context (situated cogni-tion) of the game (e.g. by extending the goals and character roles of the game into theclassroom). Attending to the underlying structure of games opens up the instructionalpotential of nearly every game. (p. 9)

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In other words, games provide a platform not only for play-based learning, but alsoclassroom discussions and analyses that extend from games-based topics and con-tent. Further, because videogames can help students develop a schema for academicmaterial (Abrams, 2009; Gerber, 2009), they can be resources for scaffoldinglearning in the classroom.

Researchers and teachers have experimented successfully with using COTS vid-eogames for a multitude of learning experiences; however, to date, most of the expe-riences appear to involve the same game for whole group instruction withinafterschool spaces. Stuckey (2013) has introduced Minecraft in afterschool settingswith students aged 4 to 16 in Australia to allow them to explore creativity and digi-tal media skills within “communities of practice” (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Squire(2005) brought Civilization into an after-school high school social studies programto support students’ understandings of history over the course of time. Gillespie(2011) used World of Warcraft in a middle school language arts after-school programto show literary connections between World of Warcraft and The Hobbit. Althoughresearch of gaming outside the classroom points to the co-construction of meaningwithin or beyond the game (Abrams, 2011; Gee & Hayes, 2011; Gerber & Price,2011; Gillespie, 2011; Squire, 2011; Steinkuehler, 2007, 2010, 2013; Stuckey,2013), what needs additional examination is how classroom and curriculum designcan engage youth in socially supported learning that helps students to make relevant,cross-textual discoveries.

Philosophical lens–social constructionismThe research philosophical stance that drove our study was social constructionism(Berger & Luckmann, 1967). Broadly speaking, the goal of social construction-ism is to attain understanding through reconstructions and vicarious experiencesof people or groups (Schwandt, 2000). Social constructionists believe that (social)meaning making occurs not independently within the individual, but in conjunc-tion with other people – that is, via co-construction among people. Two centraltenets of social constructionism are that language represents the most importantsystem through which people construct their realities and that people rationalizetheir everyday experiences by developing a model of the social world and how itoperates (i.e. social process) (Leeds-Hurwitz, 2009). Moreover, according tosocial constructionist theory, people’s everyday experiences are the result ofimplicit social agreement, societal practices, collective social action, and othersocial processes, rather than objective reality, with these experiences only existingvia these social processes. As such, social meaning is a by-product of intersub-jectivity.

When using a social constructionist lens, all knowledge claims are organizedwithin a conceptual framework through which people explain and describe theirworlds (Schwandt, 2000). According to Schwandt (2007), social constructionismemphasizes people’s interpretations of their experiences; how people identify, create,and reproduce social actions; and how they arrive at a shared intersubjective under-standing of specific life experiences. Because GBL represents a social act – that is,has a social context (Foko & Amory, 2008) – the social constructionist research par-adigm was deemed appropriate for the present inquiry.

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Conceptual frameworkResearch on videogames reveals that players are engaged in a variety of nuanced lit-eracy practices that often involve in-game reading and interactions, or a constellationof literacies (Steinkuehler, 2007). These experiences are not relegated to the screen.Youth successfully search for and read game-based texts that require vocabulary andliteracy skills well above youth’s school-based reading levels (Steinkuehler, 2013).Likewise, those who play videogames draw upon a number of resources and arti-facts to understand and/or improve their gameplay; this constellation of information(Martin et al., 2013) suggests that videogaming, like literacy, is not a solitary act ina solitary space. There are also ties between on-screen and off-screen embodiedlearning, suggesting that game play can impact off-screen actions and understand-ings (Abrams, 2011). In other words, there are socio-cultural texts and interactionsthat motivate and inform game-based meaning making. Deserving greater attentionis what this looks like in the classroom. As such, a social constructionist view oflearning helps to call attention to the constellation of connections (Abrams &Gerber, 2014a) – or the self-driven, independent, and collaborative connections thatyouth make among multi-sourced information, nuanced practices, and socialfeedback.

Connecting to meaning: connectivism, connected learning, and cross-literateconnectionsYouth who develop a constellation of connections do so through their activeinteractions with peers and with texts. This concept is partially related to the theoryof connectivism (Siemens, 2004), which suggests that online environments providemultiple opportunities for learners to search and to discover often diverse informa-tion and texts; no longer is there one knowledge source (e.g. the dictionary, theencyclopedia, the textbook or the teacher). Rather, multi-sourced information andnetworked exchanges support the development of dynamic knowledge ecologies thatembrace modification and discovery. Although interaction is inherent in connectiv-ism, connected learning (Ito et al., 2013a) provides a frame that underscores thetypes of support and interactivity necessary for student-driven, socially constructedmeaning making in the classroom.

Rooted in online interactions, the spirit of connected learning can be harnessedto create production-centered classroom experiences that are social, participatory,and equitable. According to Ito et al. (2013a), connected learning “seeks to leveragethe potential of digital media to expand access to learning so that it is socially-embedded, interest-driven, and oriented toward educational, economic, or politicalopportunity” (p. 2). Connected learning becomes an opportunity for students to beagentive learners who can build upon their interests through the guidance of a caringadult or peer (Ito et al., 2013b). In the classroom, this can translate into supportivecontexts that enable students to make connections across domains and literacies(Abrams & Gerber, 2013). More importantly, when the elements of connectedlearning – collaboration, support, interest-driven learning, and school or life-basedconnections – are included in the classroom, there are opportunities for youth toengage in practices and work with texts otherwise not part of their daily lives. In thisarticle, the focal students might have had access to some videogame equipment andonline experiences outside school, but the classroom space generated opportunitiesto engage with multiple texts and artifacts in a single space that they otherwise did

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not have outside school. Connected learning especially seeks to improve upon theno-frills technology use that generally occurs in school settings and has a top-down(standardized) test-driven approach. Instead, a classroom that incorporates featuresof connected learning emphasizes creation and critical evaluation of learning throughinnovative uses of media and technology; this is an approach that has been particu-larly successful with minority youth (Ito et al., 2013b).

When features of connectivism and connected learning become part of classroomdesign, students can draw upon a constellation of connections to inform their learn-ing. Although youth often layer their literacies as they move among a variety oftexts and experiences (Abrams & Gerber, 2014b), their ability to make cross-literateconnections (Abrams & Gerber, 2014a) is not necessarily automatic; students needto have formal and informal opportunities to evaluate critically their literate activi-ties. The cohesion of peer interaction and literate activities creates a constellation ofconnections wherein students develop nuanced understandings of the material athand. At times, students’ cross-literate practices involve the interweaving of modali-ties and disciplines (Abrams & Gerber, 2014a). Other times, there are distinct inter-textual artifacts that reveal how their experiences impact their discoveries. Putsimply, intertextuality (Kristeva, 1969/1980) suggests that “any text is the absorptionand transformation of another” (p. 66), thereby highlighting how the interpretationand development of new texts are inherently linked to the accumulation of one’s tex-tual experiences (Roache-Jameson, 2005) and socio-cultural connections (Bloome &Egan-Robertson, 1993; Dyson, 1999). A social constructionist view also calls atten-tion to students’ interpretive learning and the shared experiences that impact theircross-literate and intertextual understandings.

Research questionsThe following research questions were addressed:

(1) How can a games-based curriculum that is rooted in connected learning andsocial constructionism promote equitable and cross-literate experiences?

(2) How might the coherence of peer interaction and literate activities provideinsight into student meaning making?

MethodThis study was part of a larger study that examined the impact of a COTS video-game curriculum on students’ learning. Employing a qualitative case study design(Stake, 2005; Yin, 2014), two of the authors (Hannah Gerber and TonyOnwuegbuzie from here on referred to as instructor-researchers) stepped back intothe classroom for a semester as high school English teachers and taught a readingintervention class to a cohort of 10th graders, the majority of whom had previouslyfailed the state-mandated reading and writing examination. The course andcurriculum were designed to capitalize on students’ videogame knowledge. Over an18-week period, the instructor-researchers co-taught COTS games-based reader andwriter workshops that enabled students to understand characterization, plot, narrativewriting, expository writing, persuasive writing, and multimedia composition throughtheir existing videogame knowledge. The curriculum was aligned with the state

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standards and the Common Core Standards (i.e. an education initiative in the UnitedStates to set uniform learning standards across content areas), and the aforemen-tioned areas were designated in the scope and sequence as being crucial to the Eng-lish language arts curriculum.

The forms of data collected comprised all student assignments and journalingactivities, teacher reflections, and students’ questionnaires and interviews on theirclass experiences. Data were collected by both of the instructor-researchers. Theentire research team then analyzed data to understand students’ learning, motivation,and academic achievement.

Study in contextEastside Senior High School (student and school names are pseudonyms) is locatedin an inner-city school district in the mid-southwest, and the area is one of the low-est income regions of a city that boasts a population of more than five million peo-ple. This particular part of the city has a large inner city school district, spanningmore than 100 square miles, and is home to a primarily Hispanic/Latino population.There are five high schools in the district and many of the students at Eastside HighSchool are Limited English Proficient. If someone were to drive through the sur-rounding neighborhood during January 2013, when this project began, he/she likelywould have seen bits of newspaper swirling across the street followed by emptyplastic bags from the local ethnic supermarket blown by strong gusting winterwinds. Food trucks selling breakfast tacos were scattered throughout the neighbor-hood, and one could see mothers walking with young children and groups of teenag-ers and preteenagers meandering slowly down the cracked sidewalks, presumably toone of the three schools in the area, which included Eastside High School. Adoles-cents could be spotted joking around with one another and snapping pictures withtheir cell phones.

At Eastside High School, students and visitors who walked into the buildingwent through a security scan, including a metal detector and bag search. The staffmembers were friendly and amicable and often made small talk about anything fromthe weather to sports with the students and visitors. Although the physical buildingof the school was older, with several modular, trailer-like additions to help accom-modate the ever increasing student population, the halls of the school were cleanand cheerful, and posters made by students detailed dress code rules, including stip-ulations such as only having natural hair color and requirements for students to wearcollared shirts.

The games-based classroom contained standard furniture that one would find ina typical classroom: a traditional whiteboard for use with Expo markers, an LCDprojector and teacher computer, student desk-sets (connected desk and chair com-bos), built-in bookshelves, a small bank of three student desktops, and narrow win-dows that were set high in the wall near the ceiling. These let in enough ambientlight to brighten the classroom and offset the synthetic hue from overhead fluores-cent lights. Although this furniture was standard, the set-up of the classroom wasatypical for the school (see Figure 1) because it was designed to support collabora-tive and student-driven learning.

In an effort to encourage self-directed learning and socially constructed meaningmaking, we designed a space that supported collaboration and networking.Complementing two days of whole class instruction were three days of “guild

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work,” which hinged on students’ working in groups (aka their guilds) and circulat-ing to one of five designated sections to: (1) play videogames (the “VideogameQuest Area”), (2) read independently (“The Reading Quest Area”), (3) engage inwriting (“The Writing Quest Area), (4) conference with the teacher (“The Confer-encing Quest Area”), and (5) engage in peer review and reflective writing (The

Figure 1. Top picture represents the standard classroom setup and the bottom picturerepresents the redesigned classroom space.

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“Metareflection Area”). Students in the Videogame Quest Area, to the far right ofthe room, sat in beanbag chairs as they played games on the available consoles. Abank of computers was available in the Writing Quest Area, complete with referencebooks and style manuals. The Reading Quest area had floor-to-ceiling bookshelveswith more than 500 young adult books (fiction and non-fiction), an area throw rug,and several beanbag chairs. Additionally, there was a smaller bookshelf that hadmore than 40 videogame titles, and a stack of Game Informer magazines. The Con-ferencing Quest Area supported teacher-student discussions around a small table andthe Metareflection Station, which took place in open areas of the room, was wherestudents engaged in reflecting on their work both independently and collaboratively.Each quest area had a folder with activities that supported the whole class lessonand helped students expand their independent game development. Additionally, therewas a set of five Wifi enabled tablets that connected with a Mi-Fi provided by oneof the research team members. Students took turns signing them out.

The class curriculum (Gerber & Abrams, 2013) included elements of connectedlearning and connectivism to create a social, participatory, and equitable learningexperience. This included, but was not limited to students’ self-selection of video-game titles and literature (both fiction and non-fiction), iterative learning throughpeer review and reflection, and the development of their literacies through the designof a hypothetical videogame environment, avatar, and rules. The curriculum focusedon the juxtaposition of literature and videogames to support students’ critical analy-ses, problem-solving, inquiry-based learning, and evidence-based rationales. Towardthe end of the year, students designed a hypothetical game, crafting interwoven ele-ments of game play – from setting to avatar to rules. When they pitched the game toa fictitious game developer, students showcased their work through a variety of mul-timodal texts, such as fan-fiction (a written story that extends an element of gameplay), a video game-trailer, or an online profile for their game and their avatar.

When the students were undertaking independent work, the conversation buzzwas a mixture of Spanish, Spanglish (a hybridized language of Spanish and English)and English. Although the school had a strict No Cell Phone Policy, students oftencould be seen with their cell phones out under the desk, texting one another, orlooking up information with the Internet connected capability that their phones pro-vided. The class was lively and often loud, but an engaging place to be as noted byindependent researchers, Teri Lesesne and Karin Perry, who visited the class, andthe district English language arts curriculum director who frequently popped in toobserve the class.

Research designThe class, which represented a purposeful sample, consisted of 27 students: 26 iden-tified as Hispanic/Latino and one identified as Black. There were 12 females and 15males. Ethical factors were observed throughout the study including the use ofpseudonyms to maintain confidentiality.

An instrumental case study research design (cf. Stake, 2005) was used in thisstudy. According to Stake (2005), in instrumental case studies, one or more cases(i.e. participants) are examined primarily to obtain insight into an issue – in thiscase, how students engage in classroom literacy practices when COTS videogamesare used, and how their responses to game-based texts support their cross-literateunderstandings. Further, in instrumental case studies, the case is of secondary

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interest; rather, the case plays a facilitative role, helping the researcher(s) betterunderstand the construct(s) of interest. Each (instrumental) case is still examined indepth, its contexts evaluated, and its daily activities elucidated but only because ithelps the researcher(s) to address the research questions (Stake, 2005). The class of10th-grade students represented the bounded case.

AnalysisThe qualitative data – as a set – were analyzed via a constant comparison analysis(Glaser & Strauss, 1967). In conducting constant comparison analysis, the research-ers hoped to extract a set of themes (Leech & Onwuegbuzie, 2007, 2008) thatexplained (a) how a games-based curriculum that is rooted in connected learningand social constructionism promote equitable and cross-literate experiences and (b)how might the coherence of peer interaction and literate activities provide insightinto student meaning making? Further, using Miles and Huberman’s (1994) frame-work, we conducted two within-case (e.g. conceptually ordered displays [i.e. viavisual representations, participants were ordered by concepts]) analyses. Also, usingDenham and Onwuegbuzie’s (2013) framework, we analyzed the nonverbal behav-iors exhibited by the participants to allow the researchers to (a) corroborate speechnarrative; (b) capture underlying messages; (c) discover nonverbal behaviors thatcontradicted the verbal communication; (d) broaden the scope of the understanding;and/or (e) create new directions based on additional insights.

FindingsBriana and her interestsBriana was a 16 year-old Latina student who enjoyed playing soccer both as a mem-ber of Eastside’s Junior Varsity team and as a virtual player of soccer-based video-games, such as FIFA 12 and FIFA 13. On the pre-class questionnaire, Brianaindicated that she played videogames for two hours each week, and, in addition tosports games (such as FIFA), she enjoyed Black Ops, (a Call of Duty series first per-son shooter game). As a student, she said that she believed that she was good atEnglish language arts, although she claimed that she did not like to read books anddid not like to write, and that if she did write, she mainly would write on paperversus online forums and would talk about her “feelings” or “how my day went.”Despite her enjoyment of videogames and her opinion that she was a good studentin English class, when asked if she would be interested in a class that used video-games in English class, she questioned, “What [do] videogames have to do withenglish (sic) class[?]”

When charged with the task of creating a hypothetical videogame, Brianadesigned a complex videogame environment that revealed her understanding of theinterconnected nature of plot, setting, and characterization, which also satisfied state-mandated literacy standards. Briana created a dynamic landscape with waterfalls,caves, and mazes, and explained that her avatar, Bomasique, had to slay aliens inorder to fulfill her mission to save her sister, Clara, and complete her quest to savethe world. There were a variety of features that Briana considered in relation to heravatar’s negotiation of challenges that she (Bomasique) would face duringgame-play and the storyline/plot. For example, during a required peer-review, Brianaexplained to her guildmate, Chelsey that Bomasique would need to confront a

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number of challenges, “Aliens will be hidden in the caves, she [the avatar] has toswim through and make sure shes (sic) not seen, use camaflouge (sic) suit to hid(sic) from aliens.” Briana identified the challenge (to be invisible to aliens) and thespecial features (in this case a camouflage suit) to swim past the aliens. Briana alsoexplained that the mazes in her hypothetical game enabled her character to “gothrew (sic) and aliens follow her then she flys (sic) up on jetpack and throwsgrenades.” Briana’s guildmate, Chelsey, additionally saw the benefits in how detailedand descriptive Briana was when she designed her avatar; in a peer review ofBriana’s work, Chelsey supportively stated, “I like your avatar because you explainhow it would get to the next level. How they defend themselves from their enemy[and] what it does in case it needs help or anything.”

Although the metareflection station, built around videogame feedback loop char-acteristics (Abrams & Gerber, 2013) (see Appendix 1), prompted formal peer feed-back, students received informal and unsolicited peer-generated comments fromguild members during gameplay. In one particular instance, Briana was playingMario Kart (self-selected from the videogame library, see Figure 2) with two of herguildmates and she was tasked/assigned with playing the avatar Princess Peach byher guildmates, as often they would assign each other avatars with which to play.One of her guildmates started joking about how “girly” and weak Briana’s avatar,Princess Peach, looked. They continued joking throughout the rest of the gameplaysession about the avatar of Princess Peach, who was “too girly” to be taken seri-ously. After this particular gameplay session, Briana recorded on her videogamereflection guide, “Bomasique is different from princess peach (sic) because peach(sic) has girly powers and Bomasique can kill and run and fight.”

Although formal and informal peer feedback were integral to helping shapeBriana’s game design, so too were the curriculum and the physical layout of theclass itself (see Figure 1); both afforded Briana the opportunity to sample multiplebooks before selecting the novels that she wanted to read. Briana’s ability to “try on

Figure 2. Classroom library with two floor to ceiling bookshelves, throw rug with beanbagsfor lounging, and middle videogame shelf.

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books,” which was supported by her teacher’s directive to abandon a text after a 30-page trial, allowed her to move through several titles before selecting texts that dee-ply interested her. The variety of books that Briana read also helped her to clarifythe design of her avatar, adopting traits she deemed integral to developing a strongcharacter and forgoing traits that represented weakness. More specifically, Brianadid not enjoy the book, Under the Mesquite, and she abandoned it approximately 50pages into reading it. She noted that Maya (the main character of Under the Mes-quite) is not like Bomasique, “Maya isnt (sic) better than Bomasique [becauseBomasique] isnt (sic) scared of anything. She kills, fights, runs, bleeds to save herworld, but Maya shes (sic) just an ordinary girl who wants to become famous.” Pur-posely avoiding the replication of Maya’s character, Briana wove in traits from theprotagonist of one of her favorite books, The Girl Who Owned a City. During a con-ference with her teacher, Briana disclosed her choices, explaining that,

She [the main character in The Girl Who Owned a City] is like Bomasique because sheis not scared of anything. She kills aliens and saves the world … she could be similarto the girl from, The Girl Who Owned A City, because she wouldn’t give up.

Following this conference, Briana further developed the traits of strength and deter-mination in Bomasique.

At the end of the study, Briana, stated that her favorite videogames were of thefantasy genre, showing a shift in her previous preferred genre of shooter and sports,and maintained that her most frequent place to play videogames was at home, whereshe said she played an average of 3 h a week. However, she shifted in her attitudestoward reading and writing, and noted that she liked to read and to write “some-times,” a shift also indicated by her self-assigned summer reading of four books shetook from the classroom library. Despite her previous aversion to videogames inEnglish language arts class, she showed a changed attitude in stating that she woulddefinitely take another class that used videogames in English language arts.

Fernandez and his interestsFernandez was a shy 16 year-old Latino student. In the pre-class questionnaire hestated that he enjoyed reading actions books and writing short plays. Fernandezplayed videogames from “time to time” at home or with friends, averaging three orfour hours of game play each week. Fernandez self-reported that he was a good stu-dent in English class because “My grades can prove it,” and that he would like totry an English class that used videogames.

When Fernandez designed his hypothetical game, entitled Legend, heincorporated a number of spaces, or “maps” that represent a different environment.In a written description of the game, Fernandez wrote

You start of (sic) in your hometown which is fairly small with just a couple of houses.But when you start your quests for greatness you encounter and explore new citieswhith (sic) much more buildings. Along the way you will go through many roads.Some are verry (sic) sandy with plenty of sun, others are cold, snowy, and frozen. Theothers tropical, and some with soft sand beaches. But all in different areas. Other vol-canic and deady (sic). Along with ocean fonts (sic). Some mountains. caves.

This description of the environment in Legend included elements found in othertexts Fernandez encountered, including multi-layered maps in Wii Mario Kart and

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the terrain characterized in the book, 1001 Facts About Ancient Civilizations.Fernandez began adding features, such as volcanoes that contained hidden secrets inhis game descriptions. Fernandez explained,

The landscape will have a volcano … this will make the player defeat a certain personfirst. Also, he/she would have to look For (sic) a move called Lava Dive which willenable you to Go (sic) Deep (sic) in a volcano to find more things and finish missions.

Additionally, discussions with his guildmates, Darius and Daryl, revealed how theyconsidered the affordances of game design when playing COTS action-adventuregame, Infamous, which the boys played outside of class. The teacher recalled over-hearing the boys discussing how an open-world environment of Infamous providedplayers with more choice and control of the avatar’s movements. During peer evalu-ation, Daryl paid particular attention to environment, suggesting that Fernandez mayhave “designed many different landscapes for his [various] levels,” but he needed to“give more detail” about these landscapes. This feedback led Fernandez to re-evalu-ate his work, add more detail to the descriptions, and more deeply reflect on the lim-itations of his maps and spaces. In one metareflection log, Fernandez explained “Ikeep thinking that I need to make the cities connect to each other somehow.”

Fernandez’s avatar Red also was the product of peer feedback and discussion.Red was created through informal dialogue and formal peer feedback. Fernandezdesigned Red to be a hardened avatar who was working through his quest for great-ness and taking over his dying grandfather’s quest: to become a “legend”. In thebeginning of the game development Fernandez developed an avatar who, as hisguildmate AJ stated, was “cool” but lacked the suaveness of an avatar with whichothers would want to play or associate themselves because, “yes he’s cool, but hes(sic) not a thug unless he has girls following him.” AJ provided Fernandez withmore detail on clothing and attributes that Red should have, such as a red jumpsuit,red tux, and a very short temper. Fernandez then took this feedback from AJ andwove it into his backstory, creating in Red, a red jumpsuit wearing avatar with thetraits of rage, jealousy, and a short temper. In the backstory, Fernandez also indi-cated that Red received an ember (fire) element, enabling him to undertake theaforementioned Lava Dive.

By the end of the study Fernandez self-reported that he enjoyed playing video-games 2 h a week, down from his self-reported 4 to 5 h at the beginning of thestudy. He also claimed that he mainly played on the Wii at a friend’s house, wherepreviously he played at home on handheld devices and a PlayStation 3. His gamegenres of choice remained fighting and adventure and, in a final interview, he statedthat he would like to take a class that used videogames in English class again.

DiscussionThe stories of Briana and Fernandez reveal how a classroom structure based on con-nected learning principles enabled both students to engage in networked, self-drivenlearning. More specifically, when Briana and Fernandez constructed their games,they relied upon multiple resources, such as classmate feedback, novels, video-games, and teacher guidance to craft their game concepts. They drew upon cross-lit-erate experiences, such as their knowledge of game play, their interpretation ofcharacters and setting, their recognition and use of content-specific vocabulary (e.g.terrain, landscape) and symbols (e.g. traits of strength or anger), as well as peer

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commentary. At times, the students’ work revealed intertexual discoveries; Brianapurposefully designed her avatar, Bomasique, to embody a strength similar to that ofthe protagonist in her favorite novel, The Girl Who Owned a City. Fernandez mod-eled the design of his game, Legend, after the structure of Wii Mario Kart. In otherwords, both students made specific game choices–in terms of avatars or landscapedesign – based on their insights from books, conversations, and/or game play.

The classroom’s design, which promoted peer collaboration, support and feed-back, also encouraged experimentation, iterative learning, and student-driven experi-ences. Within the classroom, students often could physically and emotionally moveamong books, media, and other literate activities as they saw fit, and engaged indynamic and critical analyses of the texts at hand. Further, the classroom environ-ment and requirements hinged on constructive feedback and ideation within interest-oriented guilds. Guildmates served as sounding boards and co-creators of sharedunderstandings. As students, such as Briana and Fernandez, drew upon a number ofcross-literate resources and experiences, they also modified the design of their ava-tars, game spaces, and/or game rules with the peer feedback and peer support model.The impact of socially constructed meaning making, therefore, cannot be taken forgranted, because it is central to meaning making when embedded in students’ con-stellations of connections.

Just as star constellations are based on our own interpretations of shapes, sym-bols, and circumstance, so too are constellations of connections a way to perceivehow students make meaning. In this study, when students drew upon cross-literateexperience and constructed games with intertextual threads, and when their peerinteractions and literate activities cohered, we gained insight into their constellationsof connections (Abrams & Gerber, 2014a). In other words, we could trace students’meaning making – from socially-supported ideation to intertextual links to cross-lit-erate experiences – and perceive an image of how all these connections informedtheir learning. In the classroom, such a constellation of connections is dependentupon students’ iterative reevaluations of learning experiences with traditional andmultimedia texts, as well as the support gleaned from formal and informal peercollaboration, feedback, and teacher guidance, similar to the type that Briana andFernandez received on their game design project.

Equitable components of the games-based classroomIn this study, the games-based curriculum also included a classroom environmentthat provided elements of connected learning: collaboration, support, interest-drivenlearning, and school or life-based connections; these supportive contexts helped stu-dents make connections across their literate activities. These elements of connectedlearning, however, also supported an equitable learning environment, one that seeksto level the playing field by providing disadvantaged youth regular access to tradi-tional and multimedia texts, and offering them the opportunity to harness these con-nected experiences in the classroom. In the classroom, students had the freedom tochoose their own texts, novels, and games at their leisure – when they felt theyneeded to change. Briana and Fernandez became agents of their own learning whenthey could sample texts, as was the case with Briana and Under the Mesquite, orwith Fernandez perusing multiple genres, including non-fiction texts such as 1001Facts About Ancient Civilizations and fiction texts such as The Maze Runner. Thiselement of self-selection and self-governance is crucial if students are to be given

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the space to draw upon the varied and dynamic texts that can help shape their liter-acy practices.

Additionally, Briana and Fernandez engaged in regular conferencing and reflec-tion on their work with the teacher, providing them the guidance and extra resourceof a “caring adult” (Ito et al., 2013b) to help them rethink their ideas, and push newones into being, such as with Briana when asked by the teacher to think throughhow Bomasique was similar to, or different from, the characters in the books shewas reading and then to think through the traits that were integral to the avatar andhow they could be harnessed within the design of the game. The peer evaluation thatFernandez received from AJ on his avatar Red is characteristic of providing studentswith equal opportunity to engage in dynamic co-constructed learning experiencesand iterative feedback cycles. By allowing peers to evaluate critically each others’work, and thoughtfully provide feedback and suggestions for improvement, we see amore equitable type of learning experience emerge, whereby the expertise does notlie solely with the teacher, but rather becomes an interplay of conversations sur-rounding multiple layers of expertise.

This constellation of connections exists and is afforded to students only whenthe interplay of formal and informal peer collaboration, feedback, teacher support,and choice within multiple texts – digital and traditional – is rooted within a con-nected learning frame, thereby allowing students to rethink, to redesign, and toreconceptualize their works.

LimitationsIn light of these findings, we acknowledge two possible threats to internal credibil-ity: researcher bias (i.e. a priori assumptions held by the researcher) and confirma-tion bias (i.e. influence of a priori assumptions on researchers’ interpretation of data)(Onwuegbuzie & Leech, 2007). Bias was minimized in this study through the crea-tion of an audit trail and by checking for possible researcher effects via debriefingthe interpretive researcher, a process by which the lead researcher was continuouslyinterviewed in order to bring to light and to minimize any possible researcher effects(Frels & Onwuegbuzie, 2012; Onwuegbuzie, Leech, & Collins, 2008). In addition,we identified two possible threats to external validity: interpretive validity (i.e. howwell the researchers’ interpretations of the phenomenon represents the perspective ofthe participants; Maxwell, 1992) and population generalizability, a potential threat inall qualitative studies where a small sample size is utilized (Onwuegbuzie & Daniel,2003). Multiple researchers analyzed and interpreted all data, limiting the potentialthreat to the interpretive validity of the findings. However, although every effort wasmade to increase the credibility of the findings of this study, due to the small numberof participants, the reader should exercise caution when extending the findingsbeyond the population utilized in this study.

ImplicationsRowsell and Walsh (2011) suggest that “Meaning making occurs whether we usetraditional, paper-based texts or digital, multimodal texts and the level of meaningwill vary according to our purpose and the text genre” (p. 57). We argue that, inaddition to purpose and text genre, the elements of socially mediated andcollaborative feedback opportunities should also be considered as instrumental in

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the process of meaning-making and learning. As GBL learning continues to gainmomentum, educators must consider how the curricular and classroom design cansupport socially constructed meaning making and equitable learning opportunities.

This socially constructed meaning making experience translates into a curriculumthat offers instructional flexibility and honors student-driven learning that occursboth collaboratively and independently. There needs to be time for ideation and iter-ation, and neither can be achieved through heavily scripted and uni-dimensionaltasks or assignment sheets. We propose that curricula are developed so that studentsare given the choice and flexibility to form their own personal constellation of con-nections, which will allow them the freedom and flexibility to explore their ownlearning through socially constructed meaning making processes. This experiencecan be accomplished when schools and curriculum developers recognize the powerof individually collaborative learning: that is, learning that relies upon multi-textand multi-sourced meaning making with peer support and teacher guidance at thecenter instead of anthologized whole class text sets with no assignment choice orvaried assessment opportunities. This means that students self-select purposefullychosen resources while engaging in a reciprocal relationship of peer support andfeedback with peers who are working on their own constellation of connections.

Further, we recognize that bringing this type of learning experience into the class-room takes support from districts and school administrators to tackle this type of inno-vation in the classroom, and that the teachers who are involved in attempting theexperience of bringing GBL into the classroom need mentoring through professionaldevelopment, peer support groups, and resources effectively to establish this newframe of learning (Gerber & Price, 2013). We see that it is important to create and tofoster similar professional learning experiences for teachers who are attempting totackle this type of teaching in their own classrooms; therefore, we suggest that districtsand school systems approach their professional development with a similar frame: onethat is self-directed and iterative, where teachers can build upon their weaknesses andhone their strengths to develop their personal learning paradigm in which they cangrow their classroom repertoire and create classroom environments that are engaging,student-driven, and equitable for all learners (Abrams & Gerber, 2014b).

ConclusionThis study used a GBL curriculum that hinged on students experiencing a variety ofrich and immersive literacy activities to support their learning and meaning makingopportunities, and was focused particularly on supporting struggling readers andwriters. At the center of this immersive learning experience was peer collaborationand co-constructed knowledge building, which enabled students to explore deeplytheir own personal learning trajectories with the support of a peer and the guidanceof a teacher through a constellation of connections.

Through the framework of connectivism, connected learning, and the use ofcross-literate connections, the researchers analyzed the written work of two studentsin addition to their peer verbal interactions and student/teacher interviews. The find-ings suggest that, within the context of the current study, these students, who wereprovided with multiple opportunities to interact with their peers and to engage ininterest-driven, independent learning, were able to make complex inferences notonly within and across texts, but also about their own learning. GBL, when incorpo-rated within literacy classes, and harnessed in ways that enable students to self-

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select, to co-construct, and independently to learn – at least for the students in thepresent inquiry – has the power to engage students in rich, varied learning experi-ences on a quest for lifelong learning.

AcknowledgementsThe authors would like to thank Teri Lesesne and Karin Perry for their generous donation ofmore than 500 young adult titles for the classroom library. Additionally, the authors wouldlike to thank the administrators of Eastside High School and Eastside Independent SchoolDistrict for inviting us into their school to try out this innovative new teaching method. Theresearchers also would like to thank the 27 young adults who shared their Spring 2013semester with us and were willing to try a new approach to engaging in literacy activitiesand learning. Without the support of these people, this study would not have been possible.

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Appendix 1

• What have I accomplished thus far in the game space assignment?

• How does this relate to my overall goal in creating a videogame design?

• What do I need to re-do to improve my videogame design?

• What do I continue doing in creating my videogame design?

Check and explain all that apply to the steps set in the Objectives (top left):

I have completed Step 1

Evidence: _____________________

I have completed Step 2

Evidence: _____________________

I have completed Step 3

Evidence: _____________________

• Teacher Recommendations:

• Peer Recommendations:

• Total score for rubric:

• My score now (according to what I have completed):

• What do you want to accomplish at the end of the videogame space assignment?

• What steps do you need to take to accomplish this goal?

1.

2.

3.

Learning About Videogames

This is only a guide. Do NOT write on the front. The questions you need to answer are on the back.

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