“I Broke Your Game!”: critique among middle schoolers designing computer games about climate change

Background There have been increasing calls for integrating computational thinking and computing into school science, mathematics, and engineering classrooms. The learning goals of the curriculum in this study included learning about both computational thinking and climate science. Including computer science in science classrooms also means a shift in the focus on design and creation of artifacts and attendant practices. One such design practice, widespread in the design and arts fields, is critique. This paper explores the role of critique in two urban, heterogenous 8th grade science classrooms in which students engaged in creating computer games on the topic of climate systems and climate change. It explores and compares how practices of critique resulted from curricular decisions to (i) scaffold intentional critique sessions for student game designers and (ii) allow for spontaneous feedback as students interacted with each other and their games during the process of game creation. Results Although we designed formal opportunities for critique, the participatory dimension of the project meant that students were free to critique each other’s games at any time during the building process and did so voluntarily. Data indicate that students focused much more on the game play dimension of the design than the science, particularly in those critique sessions that were student-initiated. Despite the de-emphasis on science in spontaneous critiques, students still focused on several dimensions of computational thinking, considering user experience, troubleshooting, modeling, and elegance of solutions. Conclusions Students making games about science topics should have opportunities for both formal and spontaneous critiques. Spontaneous critiques allow for students to be authorities of knowledge and to determine what is acceptable and what is not. However, formal, teacher-designed critiques may be necessary for students to focus on science as part of the critique. Furthermore, one of the benefits to critiquing others was that students were able to see what others had done, how they had set up their games, the content they included, and how they had programmed certain features. Lastly, critiques can help facilitate iteration as students work to improve their games.