--- Carol Townsend <carol@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > - games provide a fun environment - (can we find > research that shows > learning by fun stays w/ someone longer than > learning by rote??) > > what else can we add to this list folks?? > There is quite a bit of research showing that experiencing any kind of strong emotion--enjoyment, anger, excitement, fear--increases learning capacity. Again, I don't have time until later in the summer, but I'd be willing to look that up for you down the road. How about Bloom's taxonomy? The levels are: Knowledge (recall of details & major ideas, lists, definitions, etc.) Comprehension (understand, compare, predict, interpret, etc.) Application (use in new situations, solve problems, etc.) Analysis (see patterns, organize, classify, explain, etc.) Synthesis (generalize, draw conclusions, integrate, create, etc.) Evaluation (assess value, make choices, judge, rank, etc.) Whereas most lecture and textbook learning are Knowledge and Comprehension based, games tend to be higher on the taxonomy. Again, later in the summer I would be willing to apply this to specific LL games if you'd like. There's also the buy-in factor. Many students--especially low achievers and those with attention challenges--are not very invested in their education and only give a half-hearted effort to their schoolwork, which perpetuates their problems. Games have a high buy-in factor--almost any kid is willing to do schoolwork if it feels more like fun than learning. ;o) There's also the added bonus that it helps to build good social skills and gives plenty of opportunity to practice those skills in real-life (not contrived) situations. And how about the fact that most games--especially educational ones--tend to hit the material being learned more frequently than other forms of learning. For example, I have two students who are learning their multiplication facts right now. It can take them a full 30 minutes to do a page of about 20 problems on paper. It takes even longer to do them using manipulatives. Flash cards are fast, but not much fun, so they don't tend to pay much attention. On the other hand, when they play multiplication baseball, they each do about 50 problems in that same 30 minutes, and they're very careful to check each other's work, meaning they're actually doing about 100 problems--and LOVING it and begging not to stop! So for any type of rote learning, games will produce more practice in less time. Well, I think I'm out of ideas for now....hope this helps! Laurie __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com