Operation ARA
A Smart Game that Teaches Scientific Thinking
Published on 28. April 2012
Software
CD-ROM
978-0-205-13839-5 (ISBN)
Description
The smart game for teaching critical thinking.
With its 'save the world plot', Operation ARA (Acquiring Research Acumen) is an interactive smart game that helps students sharpen their critical thinking and research methods skills. Students will encounter an extra-terrestrial conspiracy that is mobilizing to erode human civilization by subverting the scientific method.
The program includes an embedded critical thinking assessment that is provided in two forms so that it can be used as a pre- and a post- test, to assess critical thinking outcomes.
Watch this brief video to see how Operation ARA, an interactive smart game, helps students sharpen their critical thinking skills:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGxji7kGqpE
Operation ARA is available with select Research Methods titles through MySearchLab (www.mysearchlab.com), can be bundled with any Research Methods text or purchased as a standalone product (http://ara.pearsoncmg.com).
With its 'save the world plot', Operation ARA (Acquiring Research Acumen) is an interactive smart game that helps students sharpen their critical thinking and research methods skills. Students will encounter an extra-terrestrial conspiracy that is mobilizing to erode human civilization by subverting the scientific method.
The program includes an embedded critical thinking assessment that is provided in two forms so that it can be used as a pre- and a post- test, to assess critical thinking outcomes.
Watch this brief video to see how Operation ARA, an interactive smart game, helps students sharpen their critical thinking skills:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGxji7kGqpE
Operation ARA is available with select Research Methods titles through MySearchLab (www.mysearchlab.com), can be bundled with any Research Methods text or purchased as a standalone product (http://ara.pearsoncmg.com).
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Publishing group
Pearson Education (US)
Target group
College/higher education
ISBN-13
978-0-205-13839-5 (9780205138395)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Art Graesser is a professor in the Department of Psychology and the Institute of Intelligent Systems at the University of Memphis. Dr. Graesser received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of California at San Diego. His primary research interests are in cognitive science, discourse processing, and the learning sciences. More specific interests include knowledge representation, question asking and answering, tutoring, text comprehension, inference generation, conversation, reading, education, memory, emotions, artificial intelligence, and human-computer interaction. He served as editor of the journal Discourse Processes (1996-2005) and is the current editor of Journal of Educational Psychology (2009-2014). His service in professional societies includes president of the Empirical Studies of Literature, Art, and Media (1989-1992), the Society for Text and Discourse (2007-2010), the International Society for Artificial Intelligence in Education (2007-2009), and the Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences Foundation (2012-13). In addition to publishing nearly 500 articles in journals, books, and conference proceedings, he has written two books and edited 11 books. He and his colleagues have designed, developed, and tested software in learning, language, and discourse technologies, including AutoTutor, AutoTutor-lite, MetaTutor, GuruTutor, DeepTutor, HURA Advisor, SEEK Web Tutor, Operation ARIES!, iSTART, Writing-Pal, AutoCommunicator, Point & Query, Question Understanding Aid (QUAID), QUEST, & Coh-Metrix. He has received the following recent awards: Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award (2010, Society for Text and Discourse), Distinguished Contributions of Applications of Psychology to Education and Training Award (2011, American Psychological Association), and the first Presidential Award for Lifetime Achievement in Research from the University of Memphis (2012).
Diane F. Halpern is the Trustee Professor of Psychology and was the founding Director of the Berger Institute for Work, Family, and Children at Claremont McKenna College. She is a past-president of the American Psychological Association, the Western Psychological Association, the Society for General Psychology, and the Society for the Teaching of Psychology. Diane has published hundreds of articles and many books including, Thought and Knowledge: An Introduction to Critical Thinking (5th Ed. coming soon!); Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities (4th ed.), and Women at the Top: Powerful Leaders Tell Us How to Combine Work and Family (co-authored with Fanny Cheung). Her other recent books include Psychological Science (4th ed. with Michael Gazzaniga and Todd Heatherton) and the edited book, Undergraduate Education in Psychology: A Blueprint for the Future of the Discipline.
Diane has won many awards for her teaching and research, including the Outstanding Professor Award from the Western Psychological Association, the American Psychological Foundation Award for Distinguished Teaching, the Distinguished Career Award for Contributions to Education given by the American Psychological Association, the California State University's State-Wide Outstanding Professor Award, the Outstanding Alumna Award from the University of Cincinnati, the Silver Medal Award from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, the Wang Family Excellence Award, and the G. Stanley Hall Lecture Award from the American Psychological Association. Diane's recent projects include the development of the Halpern Critical Thinking Assessment (Schuhfried Publishers) that uses multiple response formats, which allow test takers to demonstrate their ability to think about everyday topics using both constructed response and recognition formats.
Keith Millis is a professor of Psychology at Northern Illinois University. He received his Ph.D in Cognitive Psychology at the University of Memphis in 1989. Since then he has authored several articles on discourse processing and aesthetics. Keith has received awards for this teaching and also numerous federally funded grants. In one grant, he helped develop a new type of reading assessment: the Reading Strategy Assessment Tool (RSAT). This assessment has students type in their thoughts as they read and their thoughts are analyzed by the computer using various computational methods. More recently, Keith has been working on developing reading assessments that are embedded in real-life scenarios. He served as Project Director of ARIES: Acquiring Research and Investigative Skills, a grant funded by the U.S. Department of Education (R305B070349) to build an intelligent tutor for teaching scientific inquiry. This grant provided the foundation for Operation ARIES.
Diane F. Halpern is the Trustee Professor of Psychology and was the founding Director of the Berger Institute for Work, Family, and Children at Claremont McKenna College. She is a past-president of the American Psychological Association, the Western Psychological Association, the Society for General Psychology, and the Society for the Teaching of Psychology. Diane has published hundreds of articles and many books including, Thought and Knowledge: An Introduction to Critical Thinking (5th Ed. coming soon!); Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities (4th ed.), and Women at the Top: Powerful Leaders Tell Us How to Combine Work and Family (co-authored with Fanny Cheung). Her other recent books include Psychological Science (4th ed. with Michael Gazzaniga and Todd Heatherton) and the edited book, Undergraduate Education in Psychology: A Blueprint for the Future of the Discipline.
Diane has won many awards for her teaching and research, including the Outstanding Professor Award from the Western Psychological Association, the American Psychological Foundation Award for Distinguished Teaching, the Distinguished Career Award for Contributions to Education given by the American Psychological Association, the California State University's State-Wide Outstanding Professor Award, the Outstanding Alumna Award from the University of Cincinnati, the Silver Medal Award from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, the Wang Family Excellence Award, and the G. Stanley Hall Lecture Award from the American Psychological Association. Diane's recent projects include the development of the Halpern Critical Thinking Assessment (Schuhfried Publishers) that uses multiple response formats, which allow test takers to demonstrate their ability to think about everyday topics using both constructed response and recognition formats.
Keith Millis is a professor of Psychology at Northern Illinois University. He received his Ph.D in Cognitive Psychology at the University of Memphis in 1989. Since then he has authored several articles on discourse processing and aesthetics. Keith has received awards for this teaching and also numerous federally funded grants. In one grant, he helped develop a new type of reading assessment: the Reading Strategy Assessment Tool (RSAT). This assessment has students type in their thoughts as they read and their thoughts are analyzed by the computer using various computational methods. More recently, Keith has been working on developing reading assessments that are embedded in real-life scenarios. He served as Project Director of ARIES: Acquiring Research and Investigative Skills, a grant funded by the U.S. Department of Education (R305B070349) to build an intelligent tutor for teaching scientific inquiry. This grant provided the foundation for Operation ARIES.
Content
Module 1
Students begin as "recruits" in the Federal Bureau of Science (FBS), where they first learn of an extraterrestrial plot to take over the world. Extraterrestrials are here, in disguise, and they are gradually seizing control of our minds by subverting our science with flawed research. The only way to stop them is to find out who is publishing the flawed research and exposing them as extraterrestrials. New FBS recruits are needed to root out the alien plotters.
The FBS recruit first complete a Cadet Taining module in which they must demonstrate competency in the following lessons:
The Experimental Method: Theories, Hypotheses, and Variables
Dependent Variables, Reliability, Accuracy, and Precision
Dependent Variables are Scored Objectively
Experimental and Control Group
Random Assignment Needed to Infer Cause
Experimenter Bias
Participant or Subject Bias
Sample Size, Attrition, and Mortality
Sample selection - Representative of the Population
Confusing Correlation with Cause
Premature Generalizations
Module 2
Once students advance to Module 2, the Proving Ground, students engage in a competition with a virtual peer to demonstrate how well they can apply their critical thinking skills as they evaluate a series of research papers, some based on sound scientific principles and some not, for potential flaws. The more flaws they successfully spot, the higher their score goes, and the closer they get to the ultimate goal, becoming an active FBS agent and joining the mission to foil the extraterrestrial plot.
Module 3
Once past the Proving Ground, the FBS Cadet becomes an official FBS Agent, and can go active on a mission. The newly minted FBS agent is brought into the interrogations of several suspected extraterrestrials. The agent asks a series of questions of the suspects in an effort to uncover evidence that their research is not using sound scientific principles. When serious flaws are uncovered, it is usually an indication that the suspect is in on the extraterrestrial plot. If the agent successfully identifies and arrests enough of the plotters, they will foil the invasion and save the world.
Students begin as "recruits" in the Federal Bureau of Science (FBS), where they first learn of an extraterrestrial plot to take over the world. Extraterrestrials are here, in disguise, and they are gradually seizing control of our minds by subverting our science with flawed research. The only way to stop them is to find out who is publishing the flawed research and exposing them as extraterrestrials. New FBS recruits are needed to root out the alien plotters.
The FBS recruit first complete a Cadet Taining module in which they must demonstrate competency in the following lessons:
The Experimental Method: Theories, Hypotheses, and Variables
Dependent Variables, Reliability, Accuracy, and Precision
Dependent Variables are Scored Objectively
Experimental and Control Group
Random Assignment Needed to Infer Cause
Experimenter Bias
Participant or Subject Bias
Sample Size, Attrition, and Mortality
Sample selection - Representative of the Population
Confusing Correlation with Cause
Premature Generalizations
Module 2
Once students advance to Module 2, the Proving Ground, students engage in a competition with a virtual peer to demonstrate how well they can apply their critical thinking skills as they evaluate a series of research papers, some based on sound scientific principles and some not, for potential flaws. The more flaws they successfully spot, the higher their score goes, and the closer they get to the ultimate goal, becoming an active FBS agent and joining the mission to foil the extraterrestrial plot.
Module 3
Once past the Proving Ground, the FBS Cadet becomes an official FBS Agent, and can go active on a mission. The newly minted FBS agent is brought into the interrogations of several suspected extraterrestrials. The agent asks a series of questions of the suspects in an effort to uncover evidence that their research is not using sound scientific principles. When serious flaws are uncovered, it is usually an indication that the suspect is in on the extraterrestrial plot. If the agent successfully identifies and arrests enough of the plotters, they will foil the invasion and save the world.