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An Educational Game for Teaching Search Algorithms An Educational Game for Teaching Search Algorithms Foteini Grivokostopoulou, Isidoros Perikos and Ioannis Hatzilygeroudis Department of Computer Engineering and Informatics, University of Patras, Patras, Greece Keywords: Educational Game, Gabe-based Learning, Search Algorithms, Algorithm Visualization, Pacman, Game Learning Efficiency. Abstract: Search algorithms constitute an important topic in the Artificial Intelligence curriculum and are acknowledged by most tutors to be a hard and complex domain for teachers to teach and students to deeply understand. In this paper, we present an educational computer game, designed to teach search algorithms, based on the popular Pacman game. The purpose of the educational Pacman game is to assist students to understand the artificial intelligence topic of search algorithms in an entertaining, interactive and motivating way. During their experience with the game, students can examine the behaviour of various search algorithms and a graphical annotated depiction of them through suitable visualizations. Visualizations can demonstrate the operational functionality of algorithms and are designed in line with the principles of student’s active learning. Various learning activities were designed and request students to apply specific search algorithms in various example cases with or without the assistance and feedback of the game. An evaluation study was conducted in real classroom conditions and revealed quite satisfactory results. The results indicate that the educational Pacman game is an effective way to enhance students’ engagement and help them to deeper understand the AI search algorithms. 1 INTRODUCTION part of the students, like most individuals, spend a large part of their free time playing computer games Over the past few years, special attention has been and in this line, the integration of games into courses focused on the integration of digital technologies curriculum could increase students’ interest and and games in education and there is an increased stimulation and provide opportunities for learning in interest in the utilization of games as educational an entertaining way. instruments to assist students’ learning and teachers’ Computer games can be used to teach almost teaching procedures (Wu et al., 2012). More and every area of computer science and researchers point more educational systems and serious games are out that they could constitute an effective way to developed and utilized by teachers in the context of provide more interesting learning environments for their courses. The rapid advancement of web and the knowledge acquisition and construction (Sung and technological spread of devices like tablets, Hwang, 2013). Computer games have been used smartphones and laptops have greatly facilitated the successfully in both introductory computer science integration of digital games in educational courses (Parberry et al. 2005, Bayliss 2007) and procedures. general artificial intelligence classes (Wong et al., Recently, the development and integration of 2010; Taylor, 2011; Sosnowski et al., 2013; DeNero computer games and game based learning and Klein, 2010) to scaffold learning and bring approaches in educational procedures has become a excitement and enthusiasm among students. Indeed, significant focus of attention and has attracted the through games students are given motives to interest of tutors, educational institutes and increase their interest and teachers to implement the researchers. In an effort to attract and engage learning by doing or by participating principle students and enhance the overall efficiency of (Papastergiou, 2009). So, the students have a learning procedures, digital technologies and framework for better grasping or understanding computer educational games are examined to add computer science and artificial intelligence concepts. fun factors and make teaching more attractive and In an Artificial Intelligence (AI) curriculum, a appealing (Mihail et al., 2013). In our days, a great fundamental topic is the domain of search 129 Grivokostopoulou, F., Perikos, I. and Hatzilygeroudis, I. An Educational Game for Teaching Search Algorithms. In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2016) - Volume 2, pages 129-136 ISBN: 978-989-758-179-3 Copyright c 2016 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved CSEDU 2016 - 8th International Conference on Computer Supported Education algorithms and it is a part of almost any introductory also assist them get a deeper understanding of search artificial intelligence and computer science course algorithm functionality. and textbook (Russell and Norvig, 2003). It is vital The structure of the rest of this paper is as for students to get a strong understanding of the way follows: In Section 2, related work on the utilization search algorithms work and also of their application of games in teaching concepts of Artificial to various problems. However search algorithms, Intelligence and Computer Science are presented. In including blind and heuristic search algorithms, are Section 3, we present a game to assist students in considered to be challenging for the tutors to learning search algorithms. In Section 4, the effectively teach and students to deeply understand. evaluation study conducted and the results collected Specifically, from a tutors’ perspective, teaching and are presented. Finally, Section 5 concludes the paper explaining how search algorithms operate is and provides directions for future work. challenging and in general requires a lot of explanations, illustrations and teaching aids other than blackboard to assist students in understanding 2 GAMES FOR TEACHING AI algorithms better (Baecker, 1998). In addition, from a learners’ perspective, the algorithms constitute a In recent years, the design and integration of games very challenging task for students to deeply in education and courses curriculum have attracted comprehend as they usually model complicated the attention of researchers. A detailed and complete concepts and also refer to abstract mathematical overview of approaches can be found in (Michael notions (Shabanah et al., 2010). When students learn and Chen, 2005; Connolly et al., 2012; De Gloria et new abstract concepts such as algorithm heuristics, it al., 2014; Gibson and Bell, 2013). can be hard for them without appropriate connection In literature, there is great research interest and to concrete examples (Ma et al., 2014). Visualization many works study the design of educational of their functionality and the interactive application procedures and the development of games for in various exercises and learning activities can help teaching the domain of computer science. In (Levitin students connect abstract concepts and procedures to and Papalaskari, 2002), the authors present the using concrete experiences and examples. Furthermore, of the puzzles in teaching design and analysis of learners can recognize and comprehend virtual algorithms. In (Markov et al., 2006), authors graphical representations faster and deeper than presents a work that uses machine learning as a textual instructions and static representations theme to unify core AI topics typically covered in (Shabanah et al., 2010). the AI course using the N-puzzle game and In this paper, we present an educational provides several pedagogical possibilities for the computer game that is based on the famous Pacman game. In (Sosnowski et al., 2013), authors present game. The purpose of the educational Pacman game SEPIA which stand for Strategy Engine for is to assist students to understand the artificial Programming Intelligent Agents and is a game intelligence search algorithms in an entertaining, environment for AI teaching. SEPIA is based on a interactive and motivating way. During their real-time strategy game, modified extensively to interaction with the game, students can see the preferentially support the development of artificial behavior of search algorithms and graphical agents. Another effort is presented in (Chang et al., annotated depictions of them through algorithm 2008) where a game-based learning approach is used visualizations. Visualizations can demonstrate the to help students learn graph theory topics and more operational functionality of algorithms and are specifically Kruskal’s, Prim’s and Dijkstra’s designed in line with the principles of student’s algorithms. The game is called Ticket to Ride and active learning. Various learning activities were the students through the missions that they choose designed that instruct students to apply specific about connecting one city to another, come across search algorithms in various example cases with or the implementation of the above algorithms. without the assistance and feedback of the game. An In (Hatzilygeroudis et al., 2012), authors present extended evaluation study was conducted in real an educational game to assist students in classroom conditions and revealed quite satisfactory understanding the Constraint Satisfaction results. The results indicate that the educational algorithms. The game aims to offer an entertaining, Pacman game is an effective way to enhance interactive and most of all motivating way to students’ motivation and help them to deeper students to experience with and learn about aspects understand the AI search algorithms. In addition, the of constraint satisfaction problems, constraint game can benefit students' learning motivation and propagation and algorithms
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