Levelling Up: How Prodigy Makes Learning the Loot
Many kid’s games on both mobile and desktop incorporate curriculum elements to advocate learning concepts. There’s a bit of a paralysis of choice right now - games that teach early literacy, mathematics, or science populate pretty much every app marketplace or game website. The question of their appropriateness or suitability to the curriculum is a big question. As it stands now, there’s a lot of discussion and debate surrounding how kid’s games should incorporate curriculum into their content.
One game that’s been at the forefront of curriculum-based content for teachers, parents, and kids especially, has been Prodigy Math Game. Let’s look at how:
Prodigy Math Game is an educational desktop game built around math curriculum between Grades 1 to 8. Self-described as “curriculum-aligned”, Prodigy incorporates solving math problems and learning math concepts delivered in a gamified world where players can create their own character and adventure through a game filled with objectives and challenges.
The Curriculum
Let’s start out by analysing just how closely Prodigy maps itself to Ontario curriculum. As a parent or teacher, it becomes rather self-evident. Prodigy provides things like parent dashboards so they can see the progress of their children as they progress through the game. This is a great way to build two-way engagement on both sides; parent and child.
The game is closely tied to the curriculum levels for each respective grade depending on what the player chooses. Through the parent portals, there are even guides mapping out the tiers of learning per grade level:
Figure 1: Grade 1 In-Game Math Skills as described on the website.
Reflected in the Ontario curriculum for mathematics, we can see that these are outlined mostly 1-to-1 in the “Math Skills” page of the Prodigy website. The first-grade curriculum expectations listed in the Department of Education guidelines are:
Number Sense & Numeration
By the end of Grade 1, students will:
Read, represent, compare, and order whole numbers to 50, and use concrete materials to investigate fractions and money amounts;
Demonstrate an understanding of magnitude by counting to 100 and backwards from 20;
Solve problems involving the addition and subtraction of single-digit whole numbers, using a variety of strategies
Geometry and Spatial Sense
By the end of Grade 1, students will:
Identify common two-dimensional (2D) shapes and three-dimensional (3D) figures and sort and classify them by their attributes
Compose and decompose common two-dimensional shapes and three-dimensional figures;
Describe the relative locations of objects using positional language
Take a moment to compare Prodigy’s Math Skills page to these overall curriculum expectations for first graders. The web page is designed for both parents and teachers, but at the same time takes the effort to categorise and link to (via the icon beside each skill in Figure 1)
Prodigy uses this model to infuse curriculum-driven content directly into the user experience by distilling the action of solving math problems into the core of the game. By doing so, it can cover up to Grade 8 since it allows for grade appropriate problem sets to slot into the gameplay mechanics to drive progression (give the student/player motivation to keep going).
While hints and tips support the scaffolded learning within the game, giving each problem a context is what I think the most successful aspect of this model is.
The Gameplay
Let’s talk about that context. Take a look at the screenshot below:
Just from looking at the image, you wouldn’t be able to tell “classroom math exercise” from “cute looking adventure game.” The design choice to deeply gamified learning shifts the attention away from what students are usually used to. If you were to ask a first grader, what do they think about the above image, you might find responses varying around “this looks fun!” from kids.
The game is structured as a retro, 16-bit RPG (role-playing game) inspired by many games of past, and many games that exist today (Castlevania, Super Metroid, Pokémon, Zelda, and many others come to mind). At first glance, it looks like your regular ol’ RPG. This is where Prodigy gets clever. Rather than an “attack” button, Prodigy shifts the onus onto the players’ ability to solve math problems, demonstrated in the below screenshot.
Figure 3. Example of a problem overlay players must solve to “cast spell.”
This example is just one way Prodigy executes the learning objectives in tandem with the game. As shown in the curriculum screenshot, Prodigy is composed of math problems from across many subjects involving quantity relationships, spatial sense, and operational sense as dictated by the Ontario curriculum for first graders.
Beyond The Game
Prodigy has grown into something bigger than the sum of its parts. Its ability to scale to the needs of individual users gives it the power to be a catered interactive experience that most games strive for. In this case, having math curriculum as the bedrock to reach users from Grades 1 to 8 is the smartest choice Prodigy could have done to find its niche in this enormously growing marketplace. And now, it’s an entire community platform of learners.
Figure 4. A screenshot of Prodigy’s sign-up page for new users
Learning & Gaming
Learning can be fun. Anyone who plays video games knows this. Every time you do the wrong move and get defeated by the big boss, or turn the corner on the race track a bit wide, or miss that button press - games, often, provide you with the “try again” option.
If my experience in the classroom, and as an adult learner has shown me anything, it’s that trying, again and again, and gaining more knowledge in the process, is the key to understanding any concept. Prodigy has figured out a methodology to building this into gameplay and advocating it across all the places that impact a child - at home, on their screens, and in the classroom.
It’s a great model to learn from - and something I hope emerging game producers and developers look at when building their own interactive educational experiences.
