Games are a medium many of today’s students are engaged with on a daily and weekly basis. While every game teaches, very few games are teaching relevant skills or are aligned with curriculum. Teachers everywhere are wondering how this medium could be used to engage students and increase mastery.

André Thomas has more than 20 years’ experience in CGI production. He served as Head of Graphics for EA Sports Football (including Head Coach, NFL Tour and Madden NFL); and is also credited with creating graphics for such notable films as Men in Black, Con Air, Independence Day, Ant Bully and Tomorrow Never Dies. He founded and serves as the director of the LIVE Lab in the Department of Visualization at Texas A&M University, where he also teaches game design and game development. In 2014, he founded Triseum and currently serves as the CEO, inspiring students through entertainment quality learning games.

During this seminar we will cover the history of game-based learning. Present examples and research on the effectiveness of game-based learning. We will provide examples of different game-based learning approaches and discuss how they might be implemented in a classroom and curriculum.

In the second part of the seminar we are introducing Variant: Limits a game developed at Texas A&M University that is designed to help students succeed in Calculus. We will provide an overview of the game, the research behind the game and efficacy data. Additionally we will provide practical examples on how to implement the game.

At the end of the presentation there will be time allocated for questions.

CoModeration: Elke Höfler