Abstract:

Board games have gained popularity in the last years. In fact, its market worldwide is projected to generate a revenue of US$ 8.95 billion in 2025. Although they are usually played in spare time, their potential to be leveraged as an engaging tool in classroom has been widely evidenced.

Courses related to STEM often present terms and definitions that are complex and usually abstract, which implies that the students lose the real-world perception and face difficulties understanding the underlying procedures and implications. The usage of board games during certain classroom sessions can contribute to materialize what could lay abstract if only an explanation and classical exercises were conducted.

The RoboRally board game, originally published in 1994, consists of programming the player robot's actions from the start position to the target position in a grid that represents a field with obstacles. The movement is conducted by fulfilling the actions described by a collection of cards chosen by the player at the start of each turn. This way, the player first decides on all the actions to be performed and then executes them, while dealing with the consequences of other players' actions and the board obstacles.

In this work, we reflect on how to introduce basic Computer Science terms (e.g. like programming, code, command or bug) to early secondary school students (of 13 or 14 years old) through playing the RoboRally board game. The intention is twofold: on the one hand, mathematical terms are naturally revisited while, on the other hand, the foundations of Computer Science programming are established. Regarding the mathematical aspect, RoboRally offers a rich environment for exploring logical sequencing, prediction and optimization. With respect to the Computer Science field, the main objective is to contribute developing the computational thinking ability.

Our board game-based experience took place over four different sessions of approximately 45 minutes each, with around 30 students per session. The session was structured in two phases. First, we offered a brief theoretical presentation to cover the mathematical and Computer Science terms that would later appear in the game cards. Second, we employed a simplified version of the RoboRally board game to let the students play while learning the implications of their card actions. For this phase, the students were grouped in sets of 4 to 6 people.

To evaluate the impact of our experience in the students' STEM related knowledge, the mathematical and Computer Science competencies, and their STEM vocation or interest, we conducted an initial and later survey in order to receive their feedback about the session, and also its impact on the students' knowledge. The survey analysis reveals that the students enjoyed the session, while understanding mathematical and computer science concepts, reinforcing the usage of board games to teach STEM core concepts.

It is noteworthy that our experience is directly aligned with the Mathematics course competencies officially established and regulated by the Spanish Ministry of Education. In particular with "Use the principles of computational thinking by organizing data, decomposing problems into parts, recognizing patterns, interpreting, modifying and creating algorithms to model situations and solve problems effectively." Moreover, playing the game also allows to strengthen their soft skills related to resilience, time management, and strategy planning.

Keywords:

Secondary school, STEM, board games, gamification, mathematics, computer science.