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IN THE CLASSROOM achievements, are added to existing content. A response system, such as Socrative (https:// Playing with chemistry www.socrative.com/) or Kahoot (https:// kahoot.com/), for quizzing students is one Julia Winter example of ‘gamification’. Even digital badging for laboratory practical skills assessment can How do we introduce games into our classrooms and what kind of learning be considered gamification. At the other end outcomes can we expect? of the spectrum is game- based learning (GBL), in which the content itself becomes the game. My best days in the classroom were when the method to present a spatial concept and There are four interrelated aspects of game learning happened on autopilot. Students was the precursor to our Chairs game app design that are required to achieve the flow that worked together to solve open-ended problems (http://www.alchem.ie/chairs). makes the experience compelling: storyline, and even cheered when tasks were completed. These self-directed activities all have a aesthetics, technology and mechanics By way of example, I offer the following three gaming aspect to them: they are engaging (Schell J. The Art of Game Design: a Book of examples from my own classroom: because of the playfulness. There are rules and Lenses, CRC Press, Burlingame, MA, 2008). • A challenge to each lab group to produce goals, but they are also designed to be enjoyable A true GBL activity will incorporate all of exactly 40.0 ml of hydrogen gas, with those and fun. these. Both gamification and GBL approaches that came closest receiving some extra None of the lessons listed above have a have a place in an active-learning classroom credit but, more importantly perhaps, digital component; all are ‘analogue’ activities. environment. The products for chemistry bragging rights! The gas laws became a Games in the classroom don’t need to have discussed below all fall within this spectrum. spectator sport as students would return a video or screen interface. But the current throughout the day to check on the results cohort of students have grown up with Chirality 2 of other classes. smartphones and computers; their paradigm This is a gamified approach to reviewing • Students were asked to sort a group of 20 of gaming is, for the most part, that of video or stereochemical concepts. Produced by unrelated objects (shell, pencil, can, rock, digital games. professors at RMIT (Royal Melbourne plastic toy, brush, glove, game die, etc.) A well-designed video game can captivate Institute of Technology, Australia), this app into two distinct groups based on their a user with progressively more difficult is available for iOS (https://itunes.apple.com/ attributes. This exercise was given on challenges. The user moves through the game us/app/chirality-2/id1251289926?mt=8) and the first day of a unit on stereochemistry, levels using trial and error, and the rules Android (https://play.google.com/store/apps/ and our intention was that objects of engagement become learned until goals details?id=rmit.edu.au.oliverjones&hl=en). would be sorted according to their are achieved. The question is then: how can Players can use Chirality 2 to practice concepts symmetry properties. we harness the power of games — in which such as functional groups, different types of • A game looking at the spatial arrangement making mistakes is part of the process — to isomers and the recognition of chiral carbons of cyclohexane substituents. With two help students learn? The goal of this article all using either a drag and drop or multiple- large chair conformation cyclohexanes is to present recent developments in game- choice interface. The approach is useful for drawn on a board, I would point at a vertex based learning applications for chemistry and students as part of homework, because the and prompt the class with a verbal ‘up/ look to the future with immersive chemistry answer to each of the questions can be revealed down’ or ‘axial/equatorial’. The students applications using virtual reality interfaces. readily by pushing the app’s eyeball icon. Thus, would respond with the corresponding There is a spectrum to learning games. students have a built-in assessment as they play word. The pace would increase as the At one end is a ‘gamified’ approach, in and review. game progressed. It is a loud, but effective, which game elements, such as rewards and Backside Attack Professor Neil Garg of UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) developed this iOS game (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ backside- attack/id1278956096?mt=8) to teach the concepts of the SN2 reaction. The game has an initial, fun non-chemistry activity in which the player must learn to shoot a molecule from a syringe into a beaker to unlock a reaction activity. On completion of this task, players then have to draw the mechanistic curly arrows for attack of a nucleophile on an electrophile and then for cleavage of a leaving Credit: Elizabeth Gross, Alchemie Elizabeth Gross, Credit: group. The interface recognizes the curly arrow NATURE REVIEWS | CHEMISTRY © 2018 Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature. All rights reserved. IN THE CLASSROOM notation very precisely with correctly placed and the player must perform specific chemical to the student in gameplay and to instructors arrows unlocking the ‘transition state mode’. reactions correctly — for example, the synthesis through a dashboard. The wealth of data that Here the game presents a novel approach to of a fluorescent substance — in order to survive. will be collected as students play the game is understanding energy and reaction coordinate: In addition to making this game available to intended to help guide teaching practices. the player must add energy by tapping the schools and universities, the Schell Games We are collaborating with chemistry screen to help a molecule over the transition team plan to release this chemistry game on education researchers to mine this trove of state. Higher energy barriers require faster the commercial game market. Playing with data to better understand how students learn tapping; I was never able to achieve a quick chemicals with SuperChemVR is encouraged, organic chemistry. enough tapping rate with a fluoride ion as fun and completely safe. The emerging field of games for learning, nucleophile, yet it was very easy to achieve with including those that incorporate the next an alkoxide ion. Mechanisms wave of technology of virtual and augmented This game aims to transform curly arrow reality, has been heralded as a method to Labster notation from a pen and paper activity to an reach students who have grown up immersed This Danish company has produced a interactive experience for both touch-screen in digital media. The question remains as to collection of laboratory simulations to be and web, and is being developed by my own whether these activities are an effective means used by college science students (https://www. company, Alchemie (http://www.alchem. of delivering content, and the wide variety labster.com/simulations/). The simulations ie/mechanisms). In early 2016, we received of what constitutes a game-based learning cover topics from acids and bases to viral gene National Science Foundation funding through experience seems to be one of the issues in therapy, incorporating realistic renderings of the Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) efficacy studies (Vandercruysse, S. et al. in instruments, techniques, and reagents. The programme to develop this game and the data Handbook of Research on Serious Games as simulations use a storyline and mission to keep platform to capture and analyse student moves Educational, Business, and Research Tools students interested and involved. For example, within the game. Mechanisms will be released (ed. Cruz-Cunha, M. M.) (IGI Global, Hershey, in one GBL activity, students must solve a in spring 2018 and will include game levels PA, 2012). One of the key pieces of our research murder mystery using forensic chemical appropriate for introductory courses in organic study with Mechanisms will be to test the techniques and laboratory equipment available chemistry. We plan to pilot the game and transfer of content understanding as students to them within the simulation. Labster has platform in ten college classrooms this summer use the game in college classrooms. also developed a virtual reality (VR) version and add another twenty institutions in the fall In my classroom games brought of this game activity using the relatively semester. engagement, collaboration and a spirit accessible mobile GearVR interface to create an The research portion of our SBIR grant of joy that was difficult to attain with a immersive laboratory experience. involves work to capture and analyse the moves more traditional teaching method. Playful users make within Mechanisms, as they decide learning rewarded academic risk-taking and SuperChemVR how to manipulate bonds and electrons to encouraged experimentation, useful practices The team at Schell Games is producing move reactants to products. The Alchemie data for students in and beyond the chemistry this laboratory GBL experience for a fully platform will use machine learning algorithms classroom. immersive VR system (https://www. to make the game ‘smarter’ and personalize Julia Winter schellgames.com/games/superchem- vr), such the experience for each user. The data platform CEO and founder of Alchemie Solutions, Inc. as the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive. These systems will map student progress in real-time and e- mail: [email protected] differ from GearVR in that the player requires compare these mechanism maps with those https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-018-0006-x handsets and must learn to pick up and use lab of subject matter experts, predicting when Competing interests equipment correctly with both hands. The story and how a student understands a concept. Julia Winter is the founder and CEO of Alchemie Solutions, of the game is one of a stranded space station These assessment data will be provided both Inc., which produces the Chairs and Mechanisms apps.

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