21st Century Scholar

In late December, Collegeology game designers Elizabeth Swensen, Sean Bouchard and I traveled to Texas  to conduct a case study at a Houston area high school. Our goal was to playtest the card game (Application Crunch) and soon-to-be launched online game (Mission: Admission) with a group of predominately African American, low-income students. We arrived right [...]

When I first starting working on the Collegeology game project, I was new to the world of games. I wasn’t exactly a skeptic—but I had a very superficial understanding of the power of games to engage, educate, and provoke action. I’m guessing a few of our 21st Century Scholars might be in the same boat [...]

My son started Kindergarten on Wednesday. The week prior, his big sister and I took him on a tour of his new school. We walked him into bright classrooms, showed him the library, and explained where he would eat lunch. He met a few teachers, saw the outdoor play structure, and visited the mural he [...]

by Zoe Corwin As many of you know, CHEPA is engaged in an exciting collaboration with the USC Game Innovation Lab.  We’re developing a suite of college access tools called Collegeology. Over the past few weeks, we have been playing the Pathfinder card game with high school students in three LAUSD schools.  Our goal was [...]

by Zoe Corwin I am happy to announce that the Pathfinder project has been awarded a $103,281 grant from the TG Foundation to conduct a study entitled “Increasing College Access through Digital Technologies.”  CHEPA is partnering with Dr. Gisele Ragusa from Rossier’s Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation (CORE) on this project.  We will begin [...]

by Zoe Corwin Last Thursday night was a surreal evening in LA.  While the world watched the Lakers win their second NBA title in a row, blogmaster Stefani Relles and I watched the students we have mentored over the past year graduate from high school.  We were less than two miles away from the Staples [...]

by Zoe Corwin The Pathfinder card decks have arrived.  They are very cool.  Inside the sleek blue and orange boxes are mock application envelopes, directions and 2 stacks of brightly colored cards that guide the game. A quote from Obama adorns one side of the box: “We need to put a college education within reach [...]

This week, CHEPA post doctoral research associate, Zoë Corwin, will be asking scholars working in educational technology and games, “What innovations are captivating your attention at present?” The answers will follow in a five part blog series posting this week on 21st Century Scholar. Introduction by Zoë Corwin A few weeks ago I attended the Digital Media and [...]

by Zoe Corwin In 2004, researchers from CHEPA contributed to a special edition of the journal Urban Education addressing the state of education 50 years post Brown v. Board of Education [http://uex.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/39/6/667].  We argued that lack of access to quality guidance remains one of the key markers of educational inequity in U.S. high schools.  This [...]

Note: The digital frontier in education is using video games to teach. The Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis (CHEPA) in conjunction with the USC Game Innovation Lab are developing a game which allows students to play their way through the college application process. Guest scholar and CHEPA research associate, Zoe Corwin, provides an update below. Pathfinder Progress [...]