Balancing Expression

and Structure
in Game Design:
Developing
Computational
Participation Using
Studio-Based
Design Pedagogy
Ben Devane
Cody Steward
Kelly M. Tran
This article reports on a project that used a game-cre
ation tool to introduce middle-school students ages 10 to
13 to problem-solving strategies similar to those in com
puter science through the lens of studio-based design
arts. Drawing on historic paradigms in design pedagogy
and contemporary educational approaches in the digital
arts to teach young learners about computing, this pro
gram employed a programmatic perspective to design a
curriculum that emphasizes creativity within specified
design tasks, instead of free-f orm individual artistry.

Introduction

Computing education for adolescent youth has drawn

more interest than ever, with policymakers calling f or
more research funding, better teacher education, and
Ben DeVane is Assistant Professor of Learning Sciences
at the University of Iowa. His research looks at collaborative
and creative approaches to learning with games and playful
media (e-mail: benjamin-devane@uiowa.edu). Cody Steward
is the Executive Director of US Windsurfing and a digital artist
specializing in game design and 3D modeling. He completed
his graduate work at the Digital Worlds Institute with a special
ization in serious games (e-mail: cs.stubbz@outlook.com).
Kelly M. Tran studies games, learning, and literacy. Her research
focuses on the learning potentials of game design and modding,
both in informal educational contexts and in online commu
nities. She is currently a PhD student at Arizona State University
(e-mail: tran.kellym@gmail.com).

42

added computing-oriented standards. Because of the

diversity of computing activities in 21st century life, some
scholars have suggested that we might think about youth
computing education through the lens of computational
participation (Kafai, Burke, & Resnick, 2014). Computa
tional participation places added emphasis on designing,
creating, and remixing alongside traditional conceptions
of coding and programming. Game creation tools like
Kodu and Scratch use high-level programming languages
to support teaching youth to engage with abstract and
algorithmic computational problem solving (e.g., Anton
& Berland, 2014). Some research suggests that easy-to
use game creation software could help interest young
people in computing and support their nascent develop
ment of computational thinking skills (Berland et al.,
2013; Weintrop & Wilensky, this issue). In these tools,
programming languages are integrated within visually
rich interfaces that attempt to scaffold learners' under
standing of programming principles like conditions, itera
tion, events, and modularization (see Guzdia[, 2008).
This article looks at an afterschoo[ program for youth
that aimed to integrate learning about computation with
in the creative discipline of game design. The project
employed a game creation too[ called Kodu Game Lab
to introduce middle-school students
10 to 13 to
basic elements of computational problem-solving. Using
the lens of studio-based design arts, the club taught
learners about reasoning algorithmically and conditional
ly in a given problem space. Instead of adopting a
perspective on design education that emphasizes origi
nality, spontaneity, and individuality, this program
employed a programmatic perspective on design prac
tices that emphasizes creativity within set specifications
and constraints (see Schon, 1987).
We think that studio design-based pedagogy may offer
early computer science educators a cohesive and engag
ing paradigm for fostering young learners' computational
participation-their game design artistry and computa
tional problem-solving. In our research, we have explored
the notion that established methods of studio-based
design pedagogy found in architectural education can
help young people better engage with computation
through game creation via a guided program of study.
Our curriculum endeavored to integrate computing and
studio design pedagogy by presenting students with a
structured design program over the course of seven
weeks. Participants are challenged to build a racing game
level similar to one in Nintendo's well-known Super
Mario Kart series.

Designerly Ways of Knowing

You should begin with a discipline, even if it is arbitrary,
because the site is so screwy-you can always break it
open later.
-'Quist' in Schon (1983, p. 95)

EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY/May-June 2016

We sought to craft a learning environment that

situated computational participation within the reflec
tive practice of game design. In doing so we borrowed
from Schon's argument that design disciplines craft
solutions to "messy and problematic situations" (1983,
p. 47) by using specialized knowledge. In his study of
architectural students in a school studio, Schon (1983)
contended that designing is a "reflective conversation
with a situation/' not an exercise in following a pro
grammable mental script.
One way that architectural design thinking is differ
ent from computer-like problem-solving is that it
involves a dynamic design situation that involves
mutually-reliant functional, aesthetic, and structural
considerations (Schon, 1983). And in the design solu
tion the multiple layers of compositional facets must
be synergetic-the right mix and balance of design
'things' is needed to yield a generative result. For
instance, a design for a proposed school may have
excellent organization of space, structural integrity,
and material composition, with all of these facets
working just right with one another. However, if all
these facets work best on relatively flat land and
the school is meant to be on a steeply slopping hill, all
of the aforementioned facets-space, structure, and
materials-may need to be altered, rethought, or
reworked entirely. Game design is, needless to say,
different from architectural design, but both design
disciplines are very much concerned with the overlap
ping complexities of aesthetics, human experiences,
technological capacities, and functional use.

Learning by Designing Games

and Digital Media

Our approach to grounding design in programmatic

studio practice is unique, but there exists a well-found
ed tradition of using game and digital media design as
a tool for learning. Kafai's groundbreaking (1996)
scholarship focused on helping children with their
own unique approach to designing an individual frac
tion game. Other design studio approaches have
focused on design through collaborative teams.
Hoadley and Cox (2009) had graduate students work
in teams to design groupware for learning. Mathews
(2010) also adopted a team-based approach to a
design studio in curriculum that was focused on fos
tering place-based inquiry through location-based
game design. We acknowledge that these approaches
are generative and efficacious for their chosen purpos
es, but our approach focuses on fostering the game
design capacity of individuals in a programmatic,
structured, and holistic way that draws on studio-based
pedagogy of architectural and arts design.
Scholarship on computational thinking emphasizes a
person's ability to abstract problem spaces and use
algorithms to systematically frame solutions-practices

EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY/May-June 2016

fundamental to high-level computer science practice

(Wing, 2008). While the core emphasis in computa
tional thinking is the use of algorithmic procedures to
solve problems, some scholarship places more empha
sis on the development of this competency with
programming languages (Guzdial, 2008). To the extent
that this literature on computational thinking and
computer science education considers the question of
design, it often tacitly adopts a mechanistic view first
articulated by Simon's (1969) book The Sciences of the
Artificial. Design, according to Simon, is an endeavor
of heuristic decision-making-it entails the search
through states for an optimized solution to a problem.
But in this article we take a more holistic view of
design that emphasizes the multifaceted intuitive prac
tices of design professionals (Schon, 1983).
Kodu as a Tool for Game Design

and Computational Participation

Kodu Game Lab, which was developed by Microsoft

Research, is a game-creation environment that con
tains high-level visual programming tools. Kodu distin
guishes itself with a unique visual interface (described
below), which provides users with point-and-click
tools that allow them to fashion three-dimensional
game levels by placing characters and objects in a
world, program those characters using conditional
logic, and employ a set of game-focused commands to
craft in-world events.
Research on game creation tools like Kodu can
sometimes find itself caught between paradigms of
design and computational thinking. In an effort to
help foster young people's computational literacies,
game-creation environments, like Scratch (Resnick et
al., 2009), AgentSheets (Reppenning & Sumner, 1995),
and /PRO (Berland et al., 2013), use intuitive program
ming environments to support the development of
computational thinking practices. At the same time,
initiatives employing these environments often engage
with
creative practices that constitute game devel
opment, like puzzle design, level design, and anima
tion (Anton & Berland, 2014).
Kodu has two modes, an edit mode in which the
players create the game, and a play mode in which
they play the game they have produced. The edit mode
has two types of interfaces: one type concerned with
world level design in which users can place objects
and characters, shape and design the landscape, and
place automated character paths; and the second
focused on object programming in which the character
can set the behaviors of an object (or character). The
former set of interfaces is immediately visible to the
user in the 'default' edit mode, while the latter must be
accessed by right-clicking on an object and selecting
'program.'
Most of the immediately visible tools are focused on

43