<\/p>\n
As I started reading James Paul Gee’s article, Good Video Games and Good Learning, <\/i>I was expecting some sort of general look at why playing video games can actually be good for learning. I am a gamer, so I didn’t anticipate any big revelations or ‘a-ha!’ moments about how video games aren’t actually the worst pastime you can have.<\/p>\n
However, I was surprised to find the article so inspiring in terms of actual change that could be happening in the education system that so many of us are currently trying to find work in. I’m so intrigued by the idea, not that we should be having more video games, but that we should be using the \u201clearning principles\u201d (p. 34) that video games use to improve the way<\/b> we teach students.<\/p>\n
From Gee’s list of sixteen principles, there are a few that really stood out for me. The first on the list, Identity, is a hugely important concept for high school students. The comparison he makes between an in-game identity and the identity of a scientist or furniture-maker connects also to the idea that being a student is another form of identity that young people adopt while they are in school. The unfortunate part of this is that so much of that student identity is determined by outside forces \u2013 some of which can be actively hostile towards young people! How great it could be to have students proud of their educational identity and engaged in improving within it.<\/p>\n
The fourth principle is Risk Taking and it put me in mind of the feedback provided to students by teachers. I’m thinking more specifically of English classes where students often submit work that isn’t marked by a simple ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. While I was on my practicum I often felt that there was not enough time to adequately use the feedback I had for students’ writing assignments in order to help them improve their writing. There were times that I had to just hope they would read and absorb my comments so that their next assignment could be better. Yet, the mark they received on that first assignment had consequences that might inhibit a student from doing just that. This is very much related to principle eight, Challenge and Consolidation. The learning that Gee describes sounds to me a lot like an apprenticeship \u2013 or, similar to experiences I’ve heard about graduate school. The anxiety of failure is lessened and students are encouraged to master a topic and are given the personal learning space in which to become dedicated to improvement.<\/p>\n
There was definitely a great deal in this article that had me thinking twice about educational reform and from what arena the inspiration for it should come. In fact…I think I might head to the library and take a look at Gee’s book!<\/p>\n
-Cristina R.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As I started reading James Paul Gee’s article, Good Video Games and Good Learning, I was expecting some sort of general look at why playing video games can actually be good for learning. I am a gamer, so I didn’t anticipate any big revelations or ‘a-ha!’ moments about how video games aren’t actually the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16537,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564429],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gaming-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16537"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1874"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1911,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1874\/revisions\/1911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}