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We present the Wearable Learning Cloud Platform (WLCP), a web-based platform that supports embodied educational game creation, play, and math learning in real classrooms. WLCP is a novel learning technology that supports students’ exploratory and active movement within learning environments, blending hands-on activities and collaborative games within classroom culture. We present preliminary findings from several experiments that show that a variety of embodied games created via the WLCP helps students learn mathematics in real K-12 school settings and afterschool programs. 

The Game Play and Design Framework is a project-based instructional method to engage teachers and students with mathematics content by utilizing technology as a vehicle for game play and creation. In the authors’ prior work, they created a technology tool and game editing platform, the Wearable Learning Cloud Platform (WLCP), which enables teachers and students to play, create, and experience technology-augmented learning activities. This paper describes a 14-week Game Play and Design professional development program in which middle school teachers played, designed, tested, and implemented mathematics games in the classroom with their own students. Examples are included of teacher-created games, feedback from the students’ experience designing games, and evidence of student learning gains from playing teacher-created games. This work provides a pedagogical approach for educators and students that utilizes the benefits of mobile technologies and collaborative learning through games to develop students’ higher-level thinking in STEM classrooms. 

Measurement informs our actions and decisions well beyond school, necessitating that students develop a conceptual understanding of measurement alongside the procedural ability to measure objects. We present a first attempt to explore how students express their understanding of measurement by analyzing the behavior of college and elementary students as they completed measurement estimation tasks. We clustered observable student behavior to identify six profiles of behavioral strategies which may indicate different levels of conceptual understanding.