Cuckoo Time: Learning

What will people learn through playing Cuckoo Time?
Students will develop intuitive understandings of the laws of Newtonian Mechanics. In particular, students learn:

Work energy and power
Newton’s Laws
Simple and Complex Machines

The clock parts and the movements of the gnomes are all based on physical principles outlined by the first half of the Physics C syllabus of the Advanced Placement Program, which addresses Newtonian Mechanics. More information can be found below in the documentation.

Players will learn about Physics concepts by interacting with the clock parts, such as frictionless and weightless pulleys. From these abstracted but easily understood behaviors, players will have an incentive to absorb basic physical principles as fundamental components of gameplay that they can use to formulate winning strategies.

The Need for Cuckoo Time.
The content covered in Cuckoo Time! may seem intuitive or simplistic to some. Fundamental physics concepts and simple machines are introduced to students at an early age. However, science educators have found that even successful students frequently fail to understand even the most simple phenomena. Wolff-Michael Roth, for example, (1991) has found that most students reason through lever problems through trial and error, thinking through a series of decision trees rather than developing grounded understandings of the quantitative and qualitative relationships embodied in physical phenomena. In Cuckoo Time!, the levels are designed to elicit students’ misconceptions. For example, mass increasing power-ups are placed next to pendulums to lure players into thinking that increased mass will affect the period of the pendullum. For a full list of student misconceptions related to Machines, see the documentation.

Intuitive Understandings of Physics
While the attributes of simple machines like levers, pulleys, gears, springs, or pendulums can be demonstrated offline, computer games allow players to experiment with how variables such as velocity, mass, and force interact with machines within the world of the video game, where an intuitive understanding of physical phenomena has real functional value. Cuckoo Time! is designed to produce powerful intuitive Physics understandings by leveraging players' abilities to quickly ascertain how interactive environments operate. As any platform gamer (indeed, most any American) under the age of 25 can tell you that in Super Mario Brothers, Mushrooms double your size, stars make you invincible, fire flowers let you shoot fire balls, players of Cuckoo Time! will be able to tell you that decreased mass does not make a pendulum's period any longer.

Collaborative Learning
Cuckoo Time! includes collaborative levels, where players must work together developing and negotiating strategies to catch the Cuckoo. Two players might identify multiple possible paths for getting to the top, via swinging and climbing on pendulums, using levers as springboards, or using gears to accelerate their movement, which then might give them sufficient energy to push a lever. By articulating, advocating, defending, and debating strategies, players are forced to reflect on their actions, and develop strategies that can be transferred to new situations.

Learning By Design
Through designing levels, players must consider the dynamics of a level design: What is really the work output of a lever? How much mass would be needed to propel a gnome one story in the air? As such, the level design component of Cuckoo Time! employs constructionist (Papert, 1984 Resnick 1996) techniques. Players develop deeper understandings of the rules governing physical phenomena by constructing artifacts that embody their understandings. Instructors might have players present their level designs and explain why they included particular design features – a design document, if you will. Through this documentation and presentation of ideas, players are able to refine and articulate their ideas, which is known to promote transfer into new contexts.

Assessment Opportunities
Cuckoo Time! can be used for multiple assessment strategies. Players can assess their own learning through success in the game; the game provides instant and constant feedback on students’ understandings in the world. Players receive feedback from other players in both the collaborative and competitive mode. Cuckoo Time! also captures data that can be used to assess students’ learning. Cuckoo Time! captures:

The time spent per puzzle
Percent puzzles completed and missed
A detailed record of which levels students completed

Thus, teachers can examine the puzzles to quickly see which ones give students the most troubles. Further, teachers can construct puzzles that can serve as assessments, or give design challenges as assessments.