Community reviews for Quandary

I found that students lost focus relatively quickly. Those with a higher reading level were more successful but with a relatively basic layout, keeping the attention of a whole group was almost impossible.

As an educational tool, Quandary is a welcome modification of a traditional critical thinking exercise. It does a good job of integrating technology with reasoning in a way that should be engaging and educational to students. For example, the game is interactive and based on role-playing; and when narrative structure is needed, it is conveyed in a fun format. Some scaffolding would be needed to set up the game on the front-end, and as needed during the activity, at least for younger students. But the exercise is presented logically, and the immediate feedback after making choices is good formative assessment for students as they build their critical thinking skills.

I think this game does little to engage students, especially in questions of English Language Arts. It claims to improve critical thinking but it all seems fairly rote and with little actual controversy. I also think that because it has nothing to do with anything that the students are engaged in, they won't actually care what happens in the game. Any quandaries the students face in the game are faced by characters they read about in which they get more information about the situation and where there isn't a right answer to the problem. I think students will be much more willing to discuss the ethics of choices like this if faced with an example, especially one that relates to their world or that deeply shaped their world. I don't think this game would improve any lesson but could serve as a filler for students who have finished their work, especially a test when they want to mentally check out.

The login is nice to keep track of their score, but I'd love to have more information as their teacher. The login generator did not let me add more students or another class. Also, they really need to be able to login to the place where they left off, like a save spot? Our class period was just not enough time for my slower learners. Maybe having a guided tutorial for those that needed to hear it again and have practice after doing it as a class would be beneficial as well. This would really help support different learners. There are so many possibilities here and overall, they really enjoyed it.

The students really enjoyed it, and a few asked to do it again as a free choice activity. As a way to reinforce critical thinking and reading skills, I think it's an effective add-in. There's no way to track student use, and really not anything that could be used in assessments.

Overall, Quandary is an interesting and educational game. Students commented, " I learned that for every society, group, or community there has to be someone to lead who hears everyone's opinions, or what they want to say in order to pick the best solution for the situation. it was pretty interesting...." and "Even that the game is not that fun it is helpful because it talks about facts and opinions and you have to think whats better for the people in the game and you have to read carefully in order to get more points. It makes you think a lot." Integrating Quandary for different learning styles - graphic, conversations in voices, characters and hands-on practices of decision making processes - is effective in engagement and motivation. Comments for the developer: It takes a good amount of time to load the game. It could be the Wi-Fi in my building but it was slow to load up the game. Each conversation must be clicked to be read-aloud. It would be nice to have them play like an audio-book with pause and fast forward/rewind options. Built-in glossaries would be very helpful for ELLs.

My 6th grade students were able to apply reading skills to sort and prioritize information through the Quandary Game's simulated community. Overall, the 6th grade students were highly engaged in the game and were able to sustain the decision making over a 30 minute time span. The students were motivated by the points earned and were eager to compare their accomplishments with their peers. I appreciated that the story segments and character cards could be read aloud to students. I have a wide range of readers, but the read aloud permitted students to focus on decision making without being stunted by decoding text. Some of the students struggled with their own conceptual knowledge of community decision making. Homeroom teachers could leverage the concept of community decision making outside of the game.

Great idea to promote critical thinking and problem solving, but the characters were not engaging or desired by younger students. Wording was not understood by students and needed lots of explanation from the teacher.