Nathan Holbert

In this volume, an interdisciplinary team of researchers shares insights from three years of intensive design research resulting in a game, Beats Empire, for formative assessment of computer science and data science skills. This book follows the team through the initial design process, the development of the game, its implementation in a middle school classroom, the research that came from game data, and reflections on lessons learned and future directions. By explaining in detail the team's game design process this book offers important insights into the design of assessment games.

Constructionism, first introduced by Seymour Papert in 1980, is a framework for learning to understand something by making an artifact for and with other people. A core goal of constructionists is to respect learners as creators, to enable them to engage in making meaning for themselves through construction, and to do this by democratizing access to the world's most creative and powerful tools. In this volume, an international and diverse group of scholars examine, reconstruct, and evolve the constructionist paradigm in light of new technologies and theories. Taken together, their contributions show that constructionism has advanced in educational research and practice-and also that, in turn, researchers and practitioners can learn from constructionism how to foster learning in ways that respect learners' creativity and communities.The contributors examine how constructionist design can function within contexts ranging from school and home to virtual spaces; explore ways to support learners who have been under-resourced, overlooked, or oppressed; discuss learning by collaboration; and consider the implications of learning as a creative process of construction, exploring ways to support creative enterprises within the constraints of formal classrooms. Finally, leading visionaries imagine where constructionism, design, and research will go next