Homework Is Starting to Look a Lot Like Candy Crush

"When I glanced at his screen, equations were nowhere to be seen. He was controlling a monster in the midst of battle, casting magic spells to outduel an opposing player. "That's not your math homework!" I told him. But it was. His fifth-grade-math teacher had told her students to spend time on Prodigy, a site that looks and feels like a video game."

"Prodigy surfaces multiple-choice questions in between cartoon-monster attacks. Correctly identify an isosceles triangle or the square root of 49, and your "Aquadile" or "Bonasaur"-barely veiled rip-offs of Pokémon characters-gets a health boost that will help it fend off your opponent's next salvo."

"In about 10 minutes of gameplay, he spent less than 30 seconds answering math questions. When he got one wrong, the game didn't pause to diagnose where he went wrong or guide him to the correct answer. The only time he slowed down, grudgingly, was when Prodigy forced him to watch videos advertising its paid-membership plans."

"Teachers, meanwhile, can use the games to track which questions kids get right and wrong, helping them triage trouble spots. But as I watched my son play Prodigy, it became clear there wasn't much learning happening."

An 11-year-old used a math game platform instead of math homework, controlling a monster and answering multiple-choice questions to boost health during battles. The platform presents questions between cartoon attacks and rewards correct answers with in-game advantages. Similar tools in classrooms promise to make learning feel like play and allow teachers to track right and wrong answers for identifying trouble spots. However, observation shows limited learning time, with very few seconds spent answering questions during gameplay. When answers are wrong, the game does not pause to diagnose mistakes or provide guidance toward correct solutions, and it may require watching advertisements for paid plans.

Read at The Atlantic