Hmmm. A video game designer tells me that the secret is video games and one of her main arguing points is about extremely circumstantial/unreliable historical data that semi-relates. She draws hugely unfound conclusions (in my opinion). BUT, her boots are cool.
The idea, nonetheless, is still worth discussing. This along with the text by the baby boomer James Gee shared similar enthusiasm for the gaming - learning equation but I think envisioned slightly different applications.
Here is Gee:
""So the suggestion I leave you with is not “use games in school”—though that’s a
good idea—but: How can we make learning in and out of school, with or without using
games, more game-like in the sense of using the sorts of learning principles young people
see in good games every day when and if they are playing these games reflectively and
strategically?""
This is a good question. Games don't increase learning, the types of things that they supply like intrinsic motivation promote learning. I'm very interested in this discussion of increasing ownership and incentives beyond just a grade perspective.
I've actually worked quite a but with games and learning and I'm not speaking of video games. I know these games not being video games gets away from not being technology but it still informs the discussion.
I've learned that with K-6 you can pretty much make a game out of anything. Make the rules of the game, enforce the rules of the game, add motivation for them to be successful, and hoila.
For example, when working as a counselor when I first started working at Camp Ohiyesa, I informed my cabin campers that whenever I saw trash on the ground, I would start making a nuclear noise and point to it and they had five seconds to pick it up or else we had to walk back a short distance and go through the area again and "do it the right way." You could not imagine how much excitement this created and how effective at picking up trash it was.
Furthermore, it is common at camp to award the cleanest cabin award. Human beings love to compete. It doesn't take much to get their juices flowing in this regard. If I established myself as someone they looked up to and how important their task was, they would buy into anything. I told them they were the best cabin and they were going to prove it to the camp every day by winning the cleanest cabin award everyday. And they did. Those floors were squeaky clean. Remember, we're talking about 15 young boys squeezed into a building in the woods. Squeaky Clean Floors. Anything can be made into a game. You just have to be creative. And I mean "creative" in a whole different way than many educators talk about. Game designers are highly creative people. Are teachers? Are they even allowed to be?
I'm really on board with the idea of making school more game like in that it promotes the same skills/characteristics McGonigal and Gee talk about. I also think that teachers aren't encouraged to be creative; that they have to make a deliberate effort to infuse classwork with creative elements.
ReplyDeleteI liked how in the class before last, we worked in groups to transform the soda ban from an idea to an actual lesson plan. I really would have liked to try to do that for the Gee and McGonigal texts.
So I'm gonna pose some questions to your question ... What would you do in a classroom to make it more like a game? Would that be helpful to learning in a secondary setting?? How can teachers make sure that their creativity had productive results for learning?
Good question. Maybe establishing a system/competition of encouraging students to make "connection points" where they relate course content back to the real world. This will simultaneously help students see things in ways that they understand and also enhance motivation . . . if done right. Almost anything can be fun if it is done right and almost anything can be boring. It has to be the right instructor. Beyond that, perhaps a contest where students write some flash fiction off of a one line opening prompt, then post them in a secure spot online. The class is made to read them and choose the top five over the weekend. The top five are then tallied and revealed. They then will be discussed in class to find out what exactly makes these stories entertaining. The students can relate what we discuss back to their own work and then rewrite/revise.
ReplyDeleteIt seems my definition of "games" is very close to "competitions."
I really liked your point about suing creativity to get across to students. With students becoming so involved with video games we as educators would be very wise to use the type of ideas inherent in some more "educational"-type video games. Scaffolding learning concepts is one idea that I think we could adapt from some video games. Adapting our teaching styles to what kids are interested in is a good way to connect with them.
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