I’m sitting in a session being taught by Scott Osterweil, inventor of Zoombinis and director of the Education Arcade at MIT. The session is, of course, about games, and he just distinguished between the two far extremes of the game spectrum, from the gamer, who imply that we should just take kids out of classrooms, have them play games, and they learn what they need to know. The other end is obvious. The effect is too often, somthing that he calls Content Stuffers. You take a game concept, stuff content into it, and then expect players to learn. He shows a picture of “Grand Theft Calculus.”
He has also described a study that demonstrated that kids, under many circumstances learn more by playing a information experience than when they are taught it. This is not true for everything, but it illustrates the power of play — the freedom to play.
The four freedoms of Play
- Freedom to experiment
- Freedom to fail
- Freedom to try on identities
- Freedom of effort
4 freedoms of play = 4 freedoms of learning ≠4 freedoms of school
What about fiction? It’s entertaining. It was originally about entertainment. Some is appropriate and some not. But we teach it, and we teach with it. An interesting idea.
Scott is not demonstrating a new game that is still under development at MIT. It is called Labyrinth (working title) and it starts with no instructions. This is one of the most interesting cocepts of many of these games, to me, is that you go into the game environment, figure out what the rules are, what the goal is, and how to use the rules to accomplish the goal.
I had to leave after that… My only chance for a meal today.
David,
You are right about this. By the way, Scott’s program, The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis, is one of the best math computer games ever invented. And it’s a lot of fun. It’s still available (really cheap!) and runs on current computers.
Hi David,
These concepts are well covered in David Williamson Shaffer’s book How Computer Games Help Children Learn. As I read it, I’ve been surprised a number of times by how much the book talks about games in the general sense (with or without computers) helping students learn in deeper ways rather than games in the vein of the typical “Reader Rabbit” computer variety. I don’t mean to pick on “Reader Rabbit”, because it’s fine for small children to a certain degree. It’s just that the games that guys like David Shaffer and Scott Osterveil are developing are so interesting because they really represent new and effective pedagogies for teaching that just happen to be neatly packaged as a computer game. Some may consider this a subtle difference, but I believe that the difference will prove to be much larger than most expect.
Grand theft calculus, brilliant header I must say 🙂
Hi Dave,
Just wanted to let you know the correct spelling is Scot Osterweil. He is doing wonderful work that every teacher can learn from. His work is very inspiring.
Have a great day!
Kind Regards,
Mechelle : )
I LOVE ZOOMBINI’S and still play it as a grownup!!
I think what is interesting is that it is being given the title of “games” rather than learning opportunities or education possibilities.
At my old school, students, when asked what they did in computer that day, more often than not would say that they “Played”. Hence, the perception was that all we did was play games — when in total actuality LEARNING was happening but in a fun and unique way.
My students DID use Zoombinis — and they did think they were playing — however, what they truly were doing was categorizing, problem solving, collaboration with their team member, logical thinking, sequencing, observations, decision making based on observations, compare and contrasting, cause and effect and more.
Grins — it was easier to let them think that they were playing!! However, I knew better.
Smiles to you
Jennifer
I heard Roger Shank speak a few weeks ago in San Antonio and he discussed temporal learning. Kevin Honeycutt discussed it also yesterday, in the context of brain research on learning as well as games. According to both these astute fellows and the research they cite, the brain is physiologically set up to learn over time, which is what Roger called temporal learning. Kevin discussed “arborization” in the brain’s neurons, which are the connections we make between different things we have prior knowledge / schema about. It seems to be that game play is naturally orientated towards temporal learning, where are schools (as you point out in terms of freedoms of play) absolutely are not. I think the connection between brain-based research, learning, and games is a powerful one. I also like this term “temporal learning.” This helps explain why project-based learning tends to be more engaging and “sticky” for learners, in terms of retention. I need to read the Osterweil book and Shaffer’s book on gaming. Thanks for this post and sharing those references.
David,
It’s incredible, some kids hate reading books. But allow them to read up on games, and they’ll spend hours and hours so they can improve their scores. Games are intrinsically motivating because the challenge is relevant. School does not share these characteristics.
Hi Dave,
I noticed that you corrected the spelling of his last name. However, his first name is still misspelled. There’s only one t. A lot of people follow what you do ( e.g. some of the comments to this post misspelled it as you did following your cue). Just wanted to let you know the correct spelling, so that if any teachers/scholars wanted to look up his work and/or cite his work they would have an accurate spelling.
Kind Regards,
Mechelle : )
Every teacher needs to sit next to a student using games and observe what they are doing in order to evaluate what learning is going on. (Notice I say “what” learning not “if” learning). I used to use Math Blasters in a lab situation until I sat next to a student and realized that what they were learning is to get to the part where you zap things and many of them were not focused on the math at all. Today I watched a girl doing a program that walked her through finding the lowest common denominator. She went through the first time and got 40%. She obviously did not understand it. The second time I sat with her and prompted her with a few questions about what she was doing, (i.e. Which is bigger 3/4 or 9/12?, What does least mean?) It was clear that she had learned the correct things to press by going through the program the first time. It was based on basketball and she could tell me now which team would win (which fraction was larger) and she knew which numbers to fill in and which answers to click, but she had no idea why 9/12 is not bigger than 3/4 or what least means.
Zoombinis is different. You really have to think to figure it out and get anywhere! And yet it is motivating and you don’t want to quit! Now that is an educational game. I am glad he is working on more of them.
Dear Mr. Warlick:
All kids, even at the high school level, need a break from sit-and-listen instruction at some point during each school day. It saddens me that not all states require physical education in K-12. Most kids probably don’t realize that during their play, they are learning lifelong values such as sharing, teamwork, discipline, self-respect and respect for others. If learning and play goes hand in hand why not incorporate more games into our curriculum. Educators are not paid to entertain students all day; however, they should accept the responsibility to stimulate thirsty, young minds in ways they can relate to.
Dave-
This blog is very interesting to me because it is the same here at school. All my colleagues seem to enjoy games just as much as young students. It is important to take the dedication one has for beating a score and transfer that motivation into the classroom. Even college students seem to take their gaming very seriously. Teachers need to play close attention to what games their students are playing and how the students are influenced by these games.