Assessing comprehension with student-developed construction games

To train the next generation of construction professionals, we must address teaching approaches so students can have the best opportunity to excel on multidisciplinary teams. Faculty and researchers are piloting an assessment method for an introductory construction class entitled Building Construction Materials, Methods and Equipment. The assessment employs student-developed games to achieve course learning objectives, including mastery of 140 construction-oriented terms, and has the potential to replace the previously assigned photo glossary project in which students summarized how these terms were relevant to real-world construction projects. The team-based game approach, conducted in three stages over three class days, presents an assessment of the games developed in this course via evidence of Bloom's levels of intellectual behavior in game design and accuracy in connecting course concepts to one another [1]. Preliminary results show that students' reaction to learning objective assessment via game-design days is overwhelmingly positive; students have met the game design material and activities with enthusiasm and have already shown excitement in demonstrating mastery of concepts through the team-based, active and experiential learning game design approach. All classroom game development instructions developed during this project will be made available to download and use in classes at other universities.