Gaming in Education

Captures the essence of problem based learning.  Gaming allows for growth in the realm of strategy.  Gaming enables gamers to experience poignant situations and replicate them over and over.  Not only can a difficult scenario be captured, but due to adequate exposure, one can conceptualize a course of action.  It is the brain’s version of building muscle memory in certain situations.  Also, in relation to a static classroom where students are required to do homework may become discouraged when faced with a difficult problem.  The problem is too great to encourage further effort to adapt and overcome.  With gaming, level of rigor can be adjust to the level of the game or, as previously stated, the gamer can think through those situations to create a viable solution.

While the article speaks to the lack of adaptivity, I would suggest that it speaks to the possibility of building on existing knowledge to address this issue to create a solution.  In keeping with the Maker Movement tradition (Pappert) limited solutions can become more complex.  Computers are programmed to do what they are told.  The variables are probably too simplistic which suggests that perhaps more variables can be injected into scenarios to create that adaptivity.  The human mind works the same way.  More variables make scenarios difficult to predict in which, we train our brain to focus on just a few of them.  Often, we here of professional athletes speak of “the game slowing down” after several years in the league.  They have trained their brain to focus on cues.  I train my players to focus on trends and habits of the opposition.  I train my linemen to look at the footwork of the offensive tackles.  If their outside foot is back further than the inside (i.e. not perpendicular) more than likely the play is a pass.  If the linemen are in a 3 point stance, I tell them to expect the run.  Now, I can make that scenario very difficult to comprehend by using a standard distribution and creating a probability based on a myriad of variables (down, distance, score, personnel package, etc.) or, I can simplify the entire scenario by telling players, based on their position, what to expect and giving them “assignments” to create an entire defensive system created to defeat the most likely course of action.  With all of that being said, that all applies to gaming.  Raheem Morris speaks of how gaming has influenced his coaching (Toppo, 2015).

I disagree with Ron Smith on the “all in” concept.  Life just doesn’t work that way.  Games are based on real scenarios.  It has to be a blended “piecemeal” endeavor.  Gaming can be used to limit expenditures or usage of resources.  It can be used to address safety or inject experiences into novices in a discipline.  I would even suggest that an all in approach has its limitations and negative consequences.  A blended approach that can create associations to multiple worlds is the way to go.  In the realm of mathematics, educators have to lose the dissociative nature as it currently stands.  Formulas and theorems exist to address real world problems, however, they are taught in a box.  The learner cannot see the relevance of learning abstract ideas and applying it to a 3 dimensional world.    

What I find most interesting is the need for games and technology being burdened with proving its worth against a failed system.  Some call it failing, but education had failed out children.  The position in the Central Valley should be to embrace any and all ideas that instill interest and hope in this generation of learners.  Metropolitan centers in the Central Valley consistently lead the way in being under educated and impoverished.  What turf is any educator truly defending in the discussion of ideas to promote learning in our children?  Gaming, gamification, and everything in between needs to be on the table as a possible solution to do right by people in our society with a desire to learn.