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More Videogames, Fewer Books at Some Schools?
A News.com article highlights a plan that may please word-weary students: more games, fewer books in some educational settings. That's one plan put forth by some educators who feel that current learning plans don't fully engage today's classes. By offering real-world dilemmas in a virtual setting ('discover why fish are dying in a park'), teachers hope that games will turn kids onto the idea of learning, and eventually lead them back to books. The article covers several of the projects geared towards exploring this idea, as well as research on the subject. "A game designer, Salen is working with a group called New Visions for Public Schools to establish a school in New York City for grades 6 through 12 that would integrate video games into the entire curriculum. 'There's a lot of moral panic about addiction to games. There's a negative public perception, and we know we have to deal with that. But teachers have been using games for years and years.'"
This is a brilliant idea. Obviously there are many things to be concerned about... it's not necessarily a good thing to just get games so that the kids will be entertained, but to get them to learn something, to develop thinking skills, and to keep them interested in the subject being taught.
Obviously when talking about games, and school, many of us think of calculator games. For the most part, the use of graphing calculators to play games has just been a way for students to not be bored during class, or for the lonely students to not be bored between class. There are also many calculator games that serve educational purposes in some ways, and they can easily be implemented in the classroom, since the a lot, if not the majority of high school students already own a graphing calculator.
The purpose of going to school isn't necessarily to learn, but also to learn how to learn. And there are many puzzle games that help that cause - they develop the brain in ways that traditional school just can't do. Reading helps the memory, but playing puzzle games help the way the brain actually approaches certain problems and situations.
There is a certain level of interest that is absolutely necessary in order for a student to learn. The difference between the gifted students and the not so gifted students is generally their interest level.
Generally what I saw when I was in high school was that the teachers always fought against the use of graphing calculators (especially playing games on them), but if I ever become a teacher (which I probably won't, and this might be the reason for that), I will utilize the technology available to the greatest extent, and gaming will likely be a part of that.
And... a poll:
Do you think your education would have been better had the teachers utilized games in order to help the students understand?
Yes,
Maybe.
They DID! and that's why I turned out so great!
They DID! and that's why I turned out... the way I am...
No.
.. by introducing principles in games like ZZT, for instance. ZZT came with ZZT-OOP (ZZT Object Oriented Programming Language) so that you could create your own rooms with puzzles involving monsters that interact with the player and other monsters (or other objects). Each monster could be programmed with its own set of instructions (where it's told to start or react to specific events). ZZT is a great teaching and learning tool. I have 2 decades of programming experience (starting with BASIC on an 8-bit Amstrad), and the stuff I did as a child left the deepest impression (although it was, unfortunately, the BASIC language). So teach them when they're young.
"Fewer books" is not the right answer. Educational videogames can be a lot of fun--I'm reminded of Rocky's Boots (digital logic for kids) or Fraction Action (Okay, so graphics have improved over the years)--but "Fewer books" is almost always the wrong answer. There are so many incredible books out there--books that are written with beautiful language, books that can be enjoyed and explored.
(On a tangent, schools which assign BAD books to be read are pretty criminal--there's so much good stuff out there the last thing you need to do is assign a book that's going to turn someone off of reading before they've graduated grade school.)
I applaud the use of video games for education--and I have no problem with having video games to play, for children or adults. But how much would we gain by simply having a month each semester, or each year, when all the children at a school were told "No television and no video games." With more books assigned in that period--even if it's a question of asking each student to pick five or ten books out of a hundred choices. Television and video games are more immediately engaging, and maybe you need to starve someone of them for a little while to make them be more willing to try a book. If there's nothing else to do, even the most avid watcher of cartoons might eventually pick up a book and read for a while.
Ok, so a caveat: I was a researcher of educational gaming... but I quit the field when I realized how poorly gaming could translate into the kind of learning that kids need to succeed in the world. Some questions to consider:
How do you transfer game learning to test contexts? After all, standardized tests matter to governments. If you teach in one context, it is very hard to utilize the skills in a different context. Moving from screen to paper is, for instance, tough.
A game requires simplification. What happens to history when it's all burnt into a 15 minute game? While simulations can be helpful for testing dangerous or invisible things (such as genetic combinations, hazmat training or airplane simulation), they're generally poor at proving background.
Some educational games are built on a research base. For instance, there is a math game that will build upon a learner's growing base of rote-memorized solutions (automaticity; measured in Sec. to answer) by scaffoling new and old together. These games are few and far between. MOST games are simply multiple choice, or weird adaptations of Doom-for-math-learning.
End point:
Does what we can teach through gaming actually matter in real life? What does, and what doesn't? Therefore: what should we continue to teach with books and discussion, and where can gaming be used positively?
Anyhow, that's some general food for thought... without raising issues of gender bias, stereotype threat, etc etc.
- I get to charge the district for all my overtime. I'm contracted for 37.5 hours a week. I work an average of 52 hours a week. The longest break I get is 20 minutes, if I lock my door shut during lunch period. I get time-and-a-half for the three to hours I put in every Sunday.
- I get to charge the district for all of my personal money I spend on supplies. This includes tissues, pens, pencils, notebooks, markers, batteries for calculators, cleaner, and pies (for pi day!)
- My school gets a full time counselor.
- I have an administrator who does more than stop by for 13 minutes, then leave a two page report, highlighting mostly, the lack of student work on my walls.
- I have time to sit and talk with my colleagues about students, school issues, and curriculum planning. "Time" is defined as contiguous periods longer than 7 minutes in length.
- The school district agrees that art is an integral part of the curriculum and begins bringing back art offerings to every school.
Whew. Sorry. Rant. Yes, hold teachers accountable. Honestly, I don't mind. I'm proud of my work. However, teachers are not the problem. A good 85% of us are working to the threshold of exhaustion all year.We should think about the university system. Why don't we yell about holding professors accountable? Cause if they suck, you go to a different school. I think we need to look into bringing that model to public schools.
Paul Grosfield - the quicker picker upper.
Science sure is interesting when shown to be. And, in case you wanted to know, i'm a current high school student (at a Catholic school).
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In my middle school, a retired teacher came back to teach an extra science course before regular classes started. He taught us all kinds of things, all hands on. We soldered together electronic kits, dissected animals (including a shark one of his friends caught... who needs preservatives), fermented wine from raisins, distilled it into alcohol, then burned it, made a barometer by pouring mercury into tubing, showed that there is a limit to how high you can lift water through suction by running a really long straw to the roof and having us try, exploding hydrogen balloons, and more...
Much of this wasn't exactly "safe", but that's what made it exciting. We all missed a bit of sleep in the morning, but loved it. Mr Zucca, you will always have a place in my heart.
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In either 7th or 8th grade (or both, I can't remember if one was outside of class time or not), one entire trimester of science was dedicated to doing a science fair project. Both of mine were on coilguns. Although I got a lot (and I do mean a lot) of assistance from my father that most kids wouldn't get, I can say that I learned a lot about electricity and magnetism. Winning 1st at county and 3ed at the regional science fairs wasn't bad either.
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Skip forward a few grades to my current junior year, in which my school entered the FIRST Robotics Competition for the first time. In this competition I learned way more about the disciplines involved in building a robot than I could have otherwise. Mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, building a drivetrain, pneumatics, sensors, control systems, just everything. Teamwork, planning, meeting deadlines, working with your allies, strategising, and emergency last minute repairs are all part of this competition. And as the team's programmer, I got my introduction to writing code for embedded systems, a field I may end up pursuing.
We all had a blast designing and building our robot during the six weeks from the kickoff to the ship date. Not much else would keep us at school until eight or nine at night while learning the whole time. Seeing this thread has made me realize what FIRST is really about; Dean Kamen's (the founder's) speeches now make sense. It's about getting us interested in science and technology, and that's exactly what it does. If you happen to be in a position where you could support this organization, whether you work in a high school (or even middle school... look into the FIRST Lego or VEX challenges), a company that can provide parts or sponsor a team with the support of engineers, or hold a public office, I would strongly advise you to look into this great organization.
And in case you are wondering, I'm on the FIRST Robotics Competition team 2144 from Sacred Heart in Atherton, CA. Our RadBot ended up being the highest seeded robot built by a rookie team in the Silicion Valley Regional, coming in at 11th out of 48 attending teams. We even got to be one of the 8 teams to pick our alliance members going into the finals. Victory in our first quarter final against the number one seeded alliance, when Woodside (team 100) fell over, was one of the greatest rushes in our lives. They came back strong and won the next two matches (moving on to the semifinals), but this competition was easily the most exciting thing I've ever done.
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So back on topic, student involvement is the only way to way to keep kids interested in subjects. Simply having books just doesn't cut it. And as much as I loved the Oregon Trail in elementary school, more games isn't the way to go. Hands on activities and larger projects are. In some subjects (sciences especially), this is relatively easy. In others (such as history or math) it's harder, but still doable. Small things like trying to make a hypercube out of pasta and marshmallows can make all the difference.