We, ludic designers, need to be aware that we are taking on a major responsibility when we intervene in the education of children, irrespective of the nature of their impairments. With our stated goals of reaching out at scale to ALL schools for the blind across India, this responsibility is multiplied. What if the intervention we introduce does not produce the claimed results? What if they actually or detrimental to the development of the children or their career prospects? These are questions that we need to take seriously. In our work with the schools for the blind so far, we have taken the cautious route: working with children in grades 2-4 and working with them in school periods that are earmarked for play/music so that we are not taking away their time from their scheduled academic activities. And we are not engaging with higher grades based on the same cautious conservatism: not to cause any disruption to established processes before we are certain of our methods and their results. It is another matter that given the poor academic track record of children who are blind in India, it can be argued that it is time to disrupt the status quo in the higher grades. However, we stick to younger grades for the reason stated above as well as with the optimism that if we do it right, these children when they move to higher grades will be better prepared for any disruption that we may bring into the higher grades.
One of the concerns we had was that in appropriating the play/music period, we may be depriving the children of play with their peers and any physical activity that they may be scheduled to do during these periods. However, based on our detailed interactions with many schools, it is clear that these periods are light touch periods with no rigorous content or scheduled activities. And with no resources dedicated to such periods, the children are left free to their own devices. So when we introduce any Ludic designed activity, so long as we ensure that there is pure play, we are not depriving the children of their scheduled free playtime. So we are covered on that score.
Thus, even at scale, we are not messing with the children. At a minimum, we have not caused any negative impact. So onwards to measuring if there are positive benefits: evaluating if the intended side effect of the LDA is indeed being delivered to the children. Let us start with the simple games for numeracy and see how a teacher can evaluate the acquisition of various concepts by the children.
One method for evaluation is to ask two (or more depending on the game) children to play a given game a set number of times, say 2 or 3, and ask the children to report back as to who won along with the scores. Depending on the game the teacher can credibly ascertain the concepts acquired by the children. Let us look at some examples.
1) Pebble games (the odd, even, bust game played with tamarind seeds, or shells or pebbles): Start the game with an equal number of pebbles to the two children. Ask them to play 5 rounds of the game and report back as to who won (the one with the largest number or the smallest number wins, based on the rules agreed to by both the players). Check the number of pebbles they have and verify if the claim of who won is correct based on the number and the rule of play. Do a few times with a few different pairs of students. Based on this it is easy to conclude if the children know what odd/even numbers are, larger than or smaller than or equal to relations between numbers (and actual objects) and the simple ability to count from 1 to X, where X is the sum of the pebbles given to the children.
The teacher also has to be observing the pairs of children while they are playing. It may be that the children don't play at all (since they may be bored) and simply report back the winner. In such a case, the teacher has to choose a different game or even ask the children which pebble game they want to play now and use the evaluation strategy for that game. even for the game that they did not play, if the announced result is valid, then they can be evaluated to have grasped basic concepts of smaller and bigger numbers, but they have also mastered the art of coming to an agreement with another (about not playing at all and simply declaring the correct result, for example.)
The Individual Education Plan or IEP is central to the education of children with disabilities in the global north where there are sufficient resources available to children with disabilities. These children are mandated by law to be admitted to integrated schools and then provided individualized attention. The IEP is created with the clear recognition that the needs of each child are unique and hence mandates a custom plan for each child to be created and followed. The IEP also includes assessment schemes to ascertain if the goals of the IEP are being met.
Most children with disabilities in the global south do not have such luxuries. Most children who are blind or low vision go to schools for the blind if they are fortunate till grade 7, and then a small fraction move to higher classes and an even smaller fraction complete post-secondary education. Similarly, children who are deaf or hard of hearing go to schools for the deaf. Most of these schools are severely resource-constrained and have a severe shortage of qualified teachers, in particular those with any training in working with children with disabilities. It is in this context that we need to view the Assessment aspect of Ludic Designed activities.
The positive aspect of most schools for the blind, especially in the younger grades, is that the teacher-student ratio is usually in the range of 1-6 to 1-10, and rarely reaches 1-12. Unlike most mainstream government schools where the ratio could be as high as 1-30 or 1-40 or worse.
Assessment in Ludic Design: Practice - Numeracy
The role of the teacher (or the person assessing the acquisition of the KLIs) and the strategies to be used by the teacher in assessing without breaking the fourth wall of play need a lot of study and understanding. We use the Equation game played with Junior Cards as an illustrative example. The card games are all played with at most 4 players in a group.
The presence of the teacher, however much of a fly she pretends to be, will have an impact on the gameplay. Children are very shrewd and will immediately figure out they are being evaluated and hence the observed behavior will change. The best way to do the assessment is to become one of the players and observe the 3 children who are the fellow players over 3 games. All the observations/questions that the teacher wants to use must be done while the teacher is part of the play. As a player, the teacher has every right (in the spirit of the game) to contest the winner and ask her to explain why she is the winner. And the children will explain in great detail. Similarly, the teacher could make a mistake (not too obvious since the children will catch it) and find out how the other players help correct the mistake. If we keep in mind that the assessment is continuous and not set on a particular date, but happens along with all the gameplay, it is not clear to me if there are any constraints in the teacher playing the game to do the evaluation.
If it is not possible to play the game, for some reason, the teacher can still evaluate by the following strategy. After the children have played a few rounds, you can ask about who is winning the most, who is just missing it, etc., the post mortem scene. Besides, you could tell them that you want to check if they are playing correctly and so to explain to you at the end of one game the results and explain why someone won. At this time, you can ask each one, how did you miss winning, you had 2 equations already? or some such conversation. One may find that it is far easier, less time consuming, and more enjoyable for the teacher to just play the game than to come up with all these clever strategies.
An alternate strategy of observing without playing is to ask about some interesting situations. For example, you can ask them, what happens if two children have the same number of equations. Can you find ways of deciding the winner? Maybe the player with the equation with the biggest resulting number is the winner? Maybe the smallest number instead of the biggest? In which case is it possible to rearrange equations to get the bigger or smaller number? Example 9-7=2 can be rearranged to 7+2=9 if the rule is the biggest number wins. Are the children able to do these rearrangements?
Another strategy for the teacher to be involved in the play is to be the partner to the youngest (or the one who is newest to the game) and help the child play. This is a legitimate reason for an adult/teacher to be involved in the play. The kids who already know the game would rather play than teach a newbie the rules one more time and are happier to let the adult do the teaching. While helping one kid learn the teacher can do all the observations mentioned in the writeup above.