Saturday, June 1, 2019

2019 #VWEDU: WRT: GAME: The power of the quest for learning. Turn learning into a quest.


The power of the quest for learning.  
Turn learning into a quest.  


Better yet:  Guide the student's quest in a direction that will benefit the student.
The Empty Classroom
  • You can sit in a classroom and hear the teacher tell you what you are supposed to know.
  • The only quest there is finding what you will need to know for the test.
  • You get practice in listening and taking tests over what you heard. 
  • Does Higher Education Still Prepare People for Jobs?

Any learning task is a quest

  • It is a quest to be able to do whatever is the performance requirement. 
  • For some students in class, it is an escape room game.
  • They have to solve the problem of tests in order to escape to the next grade.
  • In school the focus of evaluation is on how many questions they got wrong.  
  • But in a game, the focus is on how many sub-tasks they got right--so far.
  • So are you really surprised that many students learn a fear of failure?
  • Or at how many game-players come back for more play?
  • Or at how many school students only come back because they have to?
  • Note that any game has a mission (goal, objective)
  • A game teaches planning and goal-directed action.
  • It also teaches students what they can do.
  • A collaborative game teaches collaboration.
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The secret of games

  • Any game has a mission (goal, objective)
  • A game teaches planning and goal-directed action.
  • It also teaches students what they can do.
  • A collaborative game teaches collaboration.

Quests, educational games, self-directed learning

A quest teaches

  • How to handle failure (Failure is not forever.).
  • Self-confidence (experience at handing failure.)

Gamification of learning

The old school game

Goal One:  Convince the instructor that you "know the material"

  • Determine how the instructor tells whether you know the material.
  • Don't just "study" the material.  Mark what you need to remember.
  • Make a note of what you need to be able to do to satisfy the instructor.
  • Determine the most efficient method to get able to do that.
  • Implement that method.
  • If you get the grade you need, you win.

Goal Two:  Pass the next n semesters 

  • Determine which courses yield most readily to Goal One. 
  • Avoid courses that will require you to produce a substantial product.
  • (Product oriented courses do not yield easily to Goal One.) 
  • This strategy may fail if you go beyond a bachelor's degree.
  • Caution: the skills you practiced may not work in the job market.

Did the old game teach the skills to make a living?

  • To answer that we need a list of the skills needed to make a living.
  • Though we already know that there is no market for test-taking skill.
  • We could ask the school system for its list.   
  • The answer would tell us how honest the school system is in its claim.
  • Especially if we found that it had no such list.

What skills do students really need these days?

Entrepreneurial educators

Funding sources for education

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