For middle school students, understanding ratios is a fundamental concept that serves as a building block for more advanced mathematical concepts. However, I noticed that existing educational platforms weren't always engaging my students the way I hoped. The games that they enjoyed the most weren't appropriately challenging or math-related. Other platforms that focused on repeated practice were not interesting to students, and provided inadequate feedback. 

In collaboration with my team, I designed Master Chef Academy, a concept game that makes the process of learning a critical mathematical concept more enjoyable and effective. Master Chef Academy connects ratios to the real-world scenario of cooking, where they are essential for measuring ingredients and scaling recipes. Students get immediate, actionable feedback in a fun, game-based environment. As students improve their understanding of ratios, the problems increase in difficulty until they become a Master Chef. 

The development of the Master Chef Academy game prototype was a collaborative and systematic process that involved gathering insights from educators, crafting educational content, designing the user interface, and creating a working prototype.

I first recognized the importance of gathering insights from other educators, rather than relying on just my own teaching experience. To do this, I initiated discussions with teachers to understand their experiences with existing educational platforms and identify the challenges they faced. This feedback played a crucial role in shaping the design and functionality of the game.

Next, I focused on the game's educational content. Ensuring that the game's content was pedagogically sound was a top priority, as this would make the game an effective learning tool beyond just a fun cooking simulation. To ensure that my team understood the ratio concepts for sixth grade students, I prepared the following summary and example problem:

In collaboration with a talented team, I worked to establish the game's rules, objectives, and overall mechanics. We conducted brainstorming sessions to determine the most captivating and engaging theme that would resonate with students. Ultimately, we decided on the exciting world of culinary arts.

To create a well-structured learning experience, we meticulously planned how the game would progress in difficulty using a reputation system. We aimed to provide a smooth learning curve for students, allowing them to gradually grasp the concept of ratios as they advanced through the game levels. I created a logical flowchart that demonstrates how the game would respond to a student's successful or unsuccessful recipe attempt. 

I personally designed the user interface for the game, ensuring that it was intuitive, visually appealing, and user-friendly. Using Canva, I crafted the player's work station, as well as a notebook where students playing the game could record any calculations. I also created player feedback examples for both students' correct and incorrect answers. I took care to ensure that the interface was consistent throughout the game, with intuitive buttons and fonts that were easy to click and read.

Players see their work station as if they were standing behind it as the chef. They have a choice of measuring utensils to use, and the ingredients they will need to solve the recipe which they see in the top left corner of their screen. Players can also see their reputation meter as they solve the problem, which shows their progress as a chef and mathematician. In the images below, you can see examples of each of these assets. 

With the design elements in place, I moved on to creating a working prototype using InVision. This allowed us to simulate the user experience, enabling stakeholders to interact with the game, provide feedback, and make necessary adjustments to improve its functionality and design. In this demo, the player is working toward their restaurant earning its first Michelin star. This prototype also shows the sketchpad feature, which allows students a digital way to apply some of the strategies they have used for solving ratios. View the comments for more details on each screen. 

Throughout the development process of the Master Chef Academy prototype, I combined my skills in instructional design with my experience in the classroom. Each step was carefully thought out and executed. Through the combined efforts of the team, we successfully created a captivating and educational game concept that addressed the needs of educators and students alike. It offers a unique and enjoyable way to learn ratios while having a blast in the virtual kitchen.