When I read this paper from James Gee on how games help in learning concepts, I noticed that several ideas were evident. First, game designers do take ownership of the game they are designing. They will work harder and solve more problems when they are creating something they feel is worthy of effort. I believe that is true for all students. So if we know this information, the real question then becomes:
How can we make learning in and out of school, with or without using gaming in learning, 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?
As many of you may already know, Plato in the Phaedrus famously complained that books were passive in the sense that you cannot get them to talk back to you in a real dialogue the way a person can in a face-to-face encounter.
Games do talk back. The designers programmed it that way. In fact, nothing happens until a player acts and makes decisions. Then the game reacts back, giving the player feedback and new problems. In a good game, words and deeds are all placed in the context of an interactive relationship between the player and the world. So, too, in school, texts and textbooks need to be put in contexts of interaction where the world and other people talk back.
Designers and players are thereby encouraged to take risks, explore, and try new things. In fact, in learning or creating a game, failure is a good thing. Facing a boss, the player uses initial failures as ways to find the boss’s pattern and to gain feedback about the progress being made. School too often allows much less space for risk, exploration, and failure.
Customized curricula in school would not just be about self pacing, but about real intersections between the curriculum and the learner’s interests, desires, and styles.
Game designers have a real sense of ownership over what they are doing. Gamers almost always give verbal information either “just in time”—that is, right when players need and can use it—or “on demand”, that is, when the player feels a need for it, wants it, is ready for it, and can make good use of it. Information should work the same way in school.
Games encourage players to think about relationships, not isolated events, facts, and skills. In our complex, global world, such system thinking is crucial for everyone.
Reference
Gee, James P. & Morgridge, Tashia. (2007) Professor of Reading. University of Wisconsin-Madison. Madison, WI 53706 http://www.academiccolab.org/resources/documents/Good_Learning.pdf
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hi Debbie!
ReplyDeleteLast Fall in my Foundations class I did a book review of Dr. James Gee's book called What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. The book was a good read for someone like myself who is a novice at computer gaming. In this book Dr. Gee associates 36 learning principles to gaming that he advocates educators learn from and apply to their classrooms.
Dr. Gee spoke at UF last Fall and I wasn't able to go. I hope I get another opportunity to hear him speak as I really enjoyed reading his book.
Mary
Debbie,
ReplyDeleteThis post really got me thinking. Books can't "talk back to you", and we currently know that interaction with others, in many forms, such as cooperative learning and teaching each other, leads to true learning.
I completely agree with what you said that, "school too often allows much less space for risk, exploration, and failure".
This is true and these are all things that our kids will experience in the real world. They need to be exposed and prepared to handle failure, take risks, and explore.
Games that allow people to think about relationships, compared to isolated events, goes back to how our whole educational system needs to change to this type of thinking.