Instead of the usual lectures, some Penn State faculty are experimenting with an unconventional form of teaching class: video games.

Jane Charlton of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics decided about eight years ago that she wanted to teach a class using video games, she said. Enjoying video games as a kid and having an imaginative side inspired her to incorporate video games into her classes, she said.

She combined her enjoyment of video games with her interest in astronomy and now offers section four of her ASTRO 001 course in a video game format, she said.

It brought out hidden things about herself, Charlton said, adding that she always loved fiction and art, but her joy of it was unable to surface.

There was a decline in enrollments because other general education classes for science were becoming available, Charlton said. About 40 percent of Penn State students take astronomy, but her goal is to have more than 50 percent of Penn State students taking it, she said.

Taking astronomy will give people a different perspective on life and the beauty, size and the construction of the universe, she said.

Charlton and two of her colleagues started this task quietly in the 2014 spring semester, Charlton said, adding that there are about 1,300 to 1,400 students in astronomy and she did not want them all taking the video game class in case something went wrong with it. But now that they have become more open about it, enrollment in the video game class is higher than the other options by about a 2-1 margin, she said. Enrollment has increased about 50 percent after the video game was introduced, she said.

When the students were polled, 70 percent said they agree or strongly agree that it has enhanced their learning, 14 percent said it did not and 16 percent were neutral, Charlton said. Coming in slightly higher, 72 percent said the video-game class was more enjoyable, she said.

Charlton said she is able to ask more conceptual questions. Students can grab particles [and] put them together, she said. That helps in getting to understand how they work, she said. Nahks TrEhnl, who combines his love of art and astronomy by doing the art for the video game, said it is like a lab and hands on. He said it gives students a visual as well as something to work through.

Charlton said they have a ways to go to improve the video game to make it better. Next semester, the game will be similar because there is not a lot of time to work on it, but over the summer, there will be larger changes, said Andrew Mshar, the programmer for the video game, who is leaving after this semester.

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Astronomy department experiments with video games as a new teaching method