The Design And Development Of Middle School Geography Educational Games Based On Cognitive Load Theory

Individual personality and social development are the two major functions of education forindividual development. Seeking constructive theory and performing instructional design couldeffectively promote the functions as mentioned. The concept system of Cognitive Load Theoryprovides us with a useful access. Teaching practice at this stage often deviated from the propermeaning of the law of education and teaching, excessive load has seriously hampered thedevelopment of students’ physical and mental and social skills acquisition.Under the information age, the society are experiencing a more in-depth and thoroughchange in all area, which means the politics, economy and education need to be changed. Thechange has brought out new chance, but also make it to confront new challenges in the field ofEducation. Traditional teaching methods has affected students’ personality. Digital games as aproduct of the information age with entertaining、educational and other characteristics not onlygreatly stimulate students’ motivation and interest， but also help them to get knowledge.Therefore, It is great theory and practical significance to design and develop education gamesbased on cognitive load theory.Based on the methods of literature analysis, case studies and systems development, wecombined education and intervention mechanism in the form of game features and cognitive loadtheory to design and develop middle school geography educational games with the help of gamedevelopment software. The research work of this paper as followings.(1)The foundation theoretical research. After reviewing、carding and analyzing relevantliterature，we descript the theory such as cognitive load, the game tasks, educational games, thenwe explored cognitive load theory so that we can design educational game, especially to designthe strategy of game task.(2) The design model of educational games tasks. We selected the properly instructionaldesign and methodology through the cognitive load model, instructional design theory analysis.Reference to the relevant domestic and international game development process, we analyzed the basic elements of the game. Based on the work we developed the game task model that could beintegrated in the learning task in the learning contexts.(3)The realization of the educational game instance. Based on the proposed framework、theinstructional design theory、game design theory and the selected middle school geography texts.We used RPG、Dreamweaver and other related software to complete the development of thegame instance.With the launching of the literature review, model construction, etc., this study achieved thefollowing outstanding research results.(1) This study was rigorous and carefully defined concepts and make a detailed explanationand instructions mentioned in this study. Systematically explained the cognitive load theory andrelated theoretical, which construct the theoretical basis for the selecting of the geographyteaching and development of educational games.(2) This study constructed a vision of education under cognitive load theory of instructionaldesign framework game. Integrated the game theory and the development process of educationalgames, around the characteristics of the learner, from learning objectives, learning content,learning methods and so on to design teaching activities. Based on the overall framework ofinstructional design, we attempted to grasp theory on the macroscopic and refine on themicrostructure.(3) This study designed the educational games which in the perspective of cognitive loadtheory. We selected the first geography book content to develop a educational game called"wonderful trip" with the help of RPG, Dreamweaver and other related software platforms andtools.Although the development of the game can highlight the initial research ideas and intentions,there are also many problems and flaws due to the limit of time and development on the level ofcompetence.(1) The game based learning system construction is not perfect, the platform needs to befurther improved.(2) The game is simple, which means the game needs to improved so as to enhance the levelof education and entertainment of the game.Future research work should focus on that. Making efforts to refine and improve the integrations of cognitive load theory，teaching and educational game in the aspects of approach,presentation methods and strategies.