The Obama administration announced an initiative Monday that will use TV shows and video games in schools across America to improve the low math and science skills revealed by the Program for International Student Assessments 2006 test.
Over the next four years, the administration plans to spend at least $260 million dollars from both public and private sources to develop and distribute educational television and video games. The choice of implementing these programs is not mandated by the federal government or state, but is left up to individual school districts.
Austin Independent School District did not comment on whether or not local schools would take part in the program, and the Texas Education Agency said it was involved in other efforts to improve math and science skills.
“Math and science traditionally have been among our scores that need a lot more work to be done,” said TEA spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson.
According to the most recent data collected by the National Center for Education Statistics, Texas fourth-graders ranked one point above the nation’s average 2009 math score and the average 2005 science score. The Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, however, shows a slight disparity between students’ math and writing skills. State records show TAKS test scores for math and science are consistently lower than writing and reading scores.
“It’s something that is definitely in the focus of the state and that the Legislature is aware of,” Culbertson said. “A couple years ago, four years of math and science became required for graduating high school, but there had always been a required four years of English and government.”
Culbertson said the state is increasing schools’ percentage of students who pass the math and science TAKS by 5 percent this year. UT communications professor Matthew McGlone said one reason students perform poorly in math and science is that they tend to write themselves off early in the face of academic challenges as simply “not being a math person.”
“Kids tend to be very trait-based; they talk about it in the way you talk about blood types,” McGlone said. “We’re trying to get kids to think about it as skills they can develop so they can explore the subjects.”
McGlone is working on developing a variety of interactive educational tools, including video games and virtual-reality computer games, such as “Second Life.”
“Kids understand that you have to practice to get your muscles to grow,” McGlone said. “We need to get kids to think of their brain as a muscle.”
He gave the example of Nintendo Wii game, “Big Brain Academy” as an effective educational video game. McGlone said the game shows an image of a brain getting bigger as users improve their skills, which helps children think of their intelligence as something they can expand.
“[Video games] give kids very immediate feedback. You can symbolize a relationship between skill building and growth really well,” McGlone said. “For example, an avatar that grows as it masters its skills.”
UT communications professor Jorge Pena said that video games are a good tool to use in conjunction with traditional teaching methods and that gaming’s influence on educational strategies was inevitable.
“It’s a technology that can be harnessed in many ways,” Pena said.
He said that video game designers need to be more aware of female audiences, especially as the games start to be used in schools.
“The technology gives the appearance of being more of a male dominion than female dominion,” Pena said.
Theoretical math sophomore Eileen Martin said that math and science are fields already associated with men and that using video games to encourage enthusiasm for the subjects might only further the gender gap. Some science colleges at UT, such as engineering and geosciences, have a large male majority but natural sciences is dominated by women.
“In my real-analysis class it’s close to even, but in my numerical analysis class, I think there are maybe four girls in a class of 40 or so,” Martin said.
She said that there are specific math majors, including hers, that are more heavily male and that efforts to close this gap would require a focus on early education. Martin said her high school organized math competitions in which many women performed better than men, and this sort of activity would be more effective than video games in encouraging better across-the-board participation and test scores in math and science.
“I think it is unlikely that girls who aren’t into math or science will be interested in math or science video games,” Martin said.
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