Let's Talk About Intelligent Tutoring Systems and Games for Learning

There is a growing community of games for learning researchers conducting foundational work on game adaptivity. Their interest lies in the difficulties in ascertaining direct learning gains from instructional digital game play. The common belief is these difficulties arise from a “one-size fits all” approach to instructional game design (Beal et. al., 2002). A potential means to address this issue could lie in the incorporation of artificial intelligence and/or design elements of intelligent tutoring systems within an instructional game’s decision-making architecture. Assessing and adapting to the learner's instructional needs during gameplay would theoretically result in increased learning gains. This fireside chat will begin with a discussion on the affordances of adaptivity within games for learning. The conversation will then transition to a discussion on the limitations and challenges of implementing adaptive game play, and will conclude with a discussion on future directions in research on adaptivity within games for learning.