Learning for a Reason: Supporting Forms of Engagement by Designing Tasks and Orchestrating Environments

Abstract

This article discusses the ways that tasks and classroom cultures can be supported through the design of online immersive games. The authors focus on a mathematics unit in which students become statisticians who must understand the contextual implications of using particular mathematical tools in analyzing different data sets and reflect on what their tool choice reveals about practical situations. Through these designs, the goal is to illuminate four types of engagement: procedural, conceptual, consequential, and critical. These new opportunities to learn and to experience the consequences of decisions have the potential to change the way that students experience school. Rather than simply complying with school practices because they are important, such curricula can create opportunities for students to truly appreciate what they are doing, and why.

Notes

1. The design of these activities has been heavily influenced by curricular tasks designed by Paul Cobb and his research team, and Rich Lehrer and Leona Schauble and their research team.

2. Because of space constraints and the reader's likely familiarity with such forms of mathematical engagement, we do not discuss procedural engagement here, but move directly to discuss how the three other forms of engagement were supported in this unit.