Presentation given at the annual meeting of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST), April 2011, Orlando, FL.

1. MAPPING GAMING PRACTICE TO
SCIENTIFIC PRACTICE
Mark Chen
University of Washington
@mcdanger | markchen@uw.edu

2. PARTNERSHIP
• UW Computer Science & Engineering
• Center for Game Science (CGS)
• Zoran Popović, Seth Cooper, Erik Anderson, and Yun-En Liu
• UW Learning Sciences
• Advancing Games as Innovative Learning Environments
(AGILE)
• Philip Bell, Andrew Shouse, John Bransford, Nancy Vye, Mark
Chen, and Theresa Horstman
• UT Austin
• Taylor Martin and Carmen Petrick
• Funded by DARPA Engage Program

3. FOLDIT

4. WHAT DO PLAYERS DO IN FOLDIT?

5. PLAYER SOLUTIONS
SCORE
TIME

6. PLAYER SOLUTIONS
SCORE
TIME

7. PLAYER SOLUTIONS
SCORE
TIME

8. PLAYER SOLUTIONS
SCORE
TIME

9. PLAYER SOLUTIONS
SCORE
TIME

10. PLAYER SOLUTIONS
SCORE
TIME

11. PLAYER SOLUTIONS
SCORE
TIME

12. HOW DO PLAYERS GET BETTER? COMMUNITY!

13. HOW DO PLAYERS GET BETTER? COMMUNITY!
• Community around Foldit is rich and engaging

14. HOW DO PLAYERS GET BETTER? COMMUNITY!
• Community around Foldit is rich and engaging

15. HOW DO PLAYERS GET BETTER? COMMUNITY!
• Community around Foldit is rich and engaging

16. HOW DO PLAYERS GET BETTER? COMMUNITY!
• Community around Foldit is rich and engaging

17. BIOCHEMISTRY NOT JUST FOR EXPERTS…
• Emergence of Prior knowledge of biochemistry
skilled players
with little None
biochemistry High school / Basic
training One undergraduate
course
Majored in biology or
similar
• Game players PhD in chemistry or
organic chemistry
beat protein PhD in biochemistry 30
years ago
experts Professionally involved

18. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO PLAY FOLDIT?
To become competitive, one has to do two things:
1) learn the
science
2) participate in
the community

19. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO PLAY FOLDIT?
To become competitive, one has to do two things:
1) learn the
science
2) participate in
the community

20. FUTURE PLANS
• In-depth studies of gaming practice and expert practice
• Assess
engagement
and learning
• Foldit
• Refraction
• DNA
• and more!

21. FOLDIT TEAM THANKS:
UW Dept. of Computer Science UW Dept. of Biochemistry
Zoran Popović Seth Cooper Adrien Treuille Janos Barbero
David Baker Firas Khatib Andrew Leaver-Fay
Kathleen Tuite David Salesin Joshua Snyder Daniel Suskin Philipp Krähenbühl
Alex Cho Snyder Michael Beenen Hao Lü Lu Sien Tan Ilya Makedon Sean Gottschalk
Mathias Hällman Jeff Flatten Eric Butler Jeehyung Lee Ming Yao Alex Chia
Chris Carrico Philip Bradley Ian Davis James Thompson David Kim Rhiju Das
Yutong Zhao Sayer Herin David Anderson Benjamin Bethurum
Supported by: UW Center for Game Science UW Baker Lab HHMI DARPA Microsoft Adobe
… and all our players!