Page 32 - Ideas
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The first innovative teaching tool that William developed
with colleague, Christie Scollon, was an elegantly simple
star-searching game created using standard animation
features in PowerPoint. The two instructors designed a
game board with a field of black squares. Hidden under
one square was a star, which could be revealed by
clicking that square. Students can only click on a fixed
number of squares (to simulate the role of sample size),
after which they would have to decide if there was indeed
a hidden star. Statistical power was demonstrated by the
probability of finding the star when the star is present.
The size of the star could be varied to demonstrate effect However, there were practical limitations to the game
size – the bigger the star, the easier it would be to detect platform. “There’s never enough time for every student in
its presence. William noticed that the star-searching class to play it; I can only have 18 students play it,”
game helped students to understand the concepts William said, “so the other half of the class is just trying to
better. Students even cited the game in their responses pay attention and I’m just hoping that they’re still
to exam questions. absorbing what is going on.”
Consequently, William went on to develop a mobile
game with CTE featuring the same underlying principles,
but with a more realistic scenario and on a platform that
enables students to play (and learn) in their own time. In
this Stars Café game, students manage a chain of cafés
and have to make decisions about the introduction of
new products to increase sales. Before decisions are
made, they can pilot the changes in the menu and decide
on the number of cafes to run the trial (i.e., sample size).
In so doing, students learn that piloting the project with a
larger sample leads to better decision outcomes. With the
