My group created a video game storyboard names “Smart Tree”, which is designed for elementary school lower grade students to learn basic math. The difficulty of the games we created is increasing but never go above the elementary school lower grade students’ level. For example, the easiest two games we designed are based on counting, the first one is to identify numbers, students need to know the numerical order to complete the puzzle, another one is a little bit harder than the first one, students need to count the quantity of different shapes and input the number, besides, students can also identify the shapes like triangle, square and pentagon. The second level games are about basic calculation, and we created two games to improve students’ ability of calculation. The first one is to solve normal math problems, students can drag the stars from the sky to fill the blank and make the equation complete and correct. The second one is based on the mathematics in life, students’ task is to buy an ice cream, and they have to make a right choice that how much money they need, which requires them to practice the addition and subtraction. The last game is also the hardest one because we created to combine the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division together, and add the content of numerical comparison as well, which requires students to do the basic calculation while understand the number size.
In our group’s opinion, elementary school students are more interested in the challenging way to learn math, there are bright colors and funny cartoon figures in our video games, which made a problem-based learning become more attractive for students. In the game, learners are empowered by choosing different levels and tasks, which provided flexible and customizable study plans for every student. In each video game, students are encouraged to solve problems in different ways and thoughts, which helps student to create deep learning.