I would love to have the money to sponsor some good research based on all your wonderful questions Steven! On 5/30/06, Steven Greenstein <blue42@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'm familiar with the research on play and I'm convinced that games are more motivating than traditional classroom lessons. Not all classroom experiences involve drudgery and coercion, however. What a sad state our school system is in that it's so commonly described this way, eh?
It's what most kids experience these days. It's the easiest, shortest line between "standard" and "test".
Anyway, I used games and puzzles in my classroom when I taught high school. Kids were excited about "game day" and they'd rush to the front of the room to grab one and start playing. I got a friend of mine into it, as well, and he'd receive stipends to buy more games when administrators would come by and see what was going on in his classroom.
Sounds like a classroom I wish I had been in! Either as a teacher or a student!
Now I'm interested in looking a bit deeper. Let's assume that kids want to play games, that the motivation's already there. What kinds of games teach concepts better than traditional or even reform-based approaches? What do kids get out of playing these games that they don't get out of these other approaches? Are they better able to master the concepts, to develop the skills,...?
All of these are great questions. We'd have to look at which specfic skills we're trying to develop. If you're trying to develop people who can memorize and spit back answers, then our current system sort of works. (it works better as a system that rewards cheaters that don't get caught, but that's an entirely different discussion.) If you're trying to develop thinkers, planners, dreamers... people with creativity and a firm understanding of cause and effect... then games are an excellent way to foster these skills. Unfortunately, they are also tough to test for.
Does the approach work better for some students than others? If so,
which ones? When is it worth it to throw out today's lesson plan and play a game? I would counter with "when is it worth MAKING today's lesson plan include playing a game?"
How do you know their learning? Do they have to win the game? What
about issues of winning and losing? This is where multiple assessments come in. Have them write about their experiences (journaling, essay, whatever). Place winning and losing into other contexts (history - easy w/ wars.... science - did Thomas Edison lose 900 times before he invented the lightbulb....etc).
Is the kid who's cramming for the trivia game only interested in
winning? Is s/he likely to learn trivia by cramming? And what value is there in learning trivia, anyway, except that it's easy to test? The beauty of this is that there are tons of great games out there (Looney Labs games being at the top of my list, of course) which have nothing to do with trivia. It's about strategy, give and take, thinking in someone else's shoes... etc. And the good thing is that they don't have to win to learn that stuff.
If your job and your students' graduation were on the line (and this
is exactly the case for educators) and the high-stakes test were to occur next week, would you be confident enough to have a game day? If some students didn't pass, could you justify the game day?
This totally depends on the kids and the rest of the prep before hand. Yes... if there were a high stakes test on the line, and I felt that my prep of the kids up to this day was good, then I'd WANT the kids to be able to relax the day before the test. Having an open, relaxed mind is key to test taking. Taking one more day to cram in facts that aren't there yet... well, I'm not sure that cramming day would be of any use to them. If I spent the day stretching that muscle they call a brain in ways that will help them see around corners in the test, so they can by-pass their own blind spots... then yes! For example, I'd love to toss Zendo out at AP Chem kids the day before the test. It gets them thinking in so many other directions that their brains need to go to. Or Treehouse... or Fluxx. Getting fun into their day gets good chemicals going in their brains... which can only help them on the day of the test. Carol