Katie Salen’s perspective on learning is so far ahead that she seems like she is speaking from the future. Her views are synched with the emerging realities that the TeacherSolutions 2030 team describe in our work. By the year 2030 teaching could become a student centered profession that gives students the education they need and deserve.
In the future kids will need to collaborate, work in teams, engage in complex problem solving, practice empathy, and adopt new identities, all in an environment where it is safe to take risks. According to Salen, all of these skills are taught through game design. At Quest to Learn, a grade 6-12 charter school in New York city, founded by Salen’s Institute of Play, students participate in project based learning grounded in an approach that intertwines game theory and learning theory.
In the interview below, Katie Salen says a lot of important things but, the one that really made me do a double take was this, Salen says,
“One reason games are so motivating for kids is that they actually know that it was designed for them to be successful within it. They don’t often think about that in the classroom sometimes. I don’t know that they think about the classroom as an environment that has been designed for their success. It often feels like a nemesis or challenge that they have to go through, but they’re not quite sure that they are going to be able to do it.”
That comment hit me like number two pencil in the eye. It blasts an asteroid sized hole in our standards based educational reforms. The current path, so defined by testing, sets kids and teachers up for just that, the chance to fail. That is why we are losing bright kids and brilliant teachers, because, they don’t feel like the educational system is set up for their success.
Games as Salen describes them are actually a stronger accountability system than the current make or break, end of year test. Salen describes how games actually have assessment built into their design. Every second of every game, kids know how well they are doing, they are solving problems scaffolded to just the right level of challenge, and when they are successful, they know it. When they aren’t, its no big deal, just start a new game or go back a level and learn what you needed to learn to move forward.
Listening to Salen describe how learning, assessment, and game theory are so interrelated I couldn’t help but think, if we aren’t too late, the future is now.
Image from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katie_Salen
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
John has plucked such a valuable lesson from Salen’s amazing story. A classroom designed like a game is a great concept. Yet, if we aren’t careful we may end up with one that functions like a Rubik’s Cube. While the reforms I’m experiencing in my school in Alabama aren’t close to Quest to Learn or Institute of Play, I do see amazing changes in students when you hand the learning reins to them. Project learning, when done well, is designed to foster student collaboration, problem-solving, and creativity.
The trailblazing students at Quest to Learn and Institute of Play will demonstrate what we have been saying at TeacherSolutions 2030. A student centered learning environment will yield the results we want and they need. These schools are ones I plan to follow. (You can follow The Institute of Play on Twitter @instituteofplay)
There’s a librarian from upstate New York, Chris Harris, who I’ve heard a few times, and I follow his writings. ALA has even put together a nice gaming toolkit
http://librarygamingtoolkit.org/index.html
There are some great resources as you go across the top menu bar.
I looked at the summer assignment for 6th grade at the Quest to Learn school-very interesting. Thanks for sharing this; I plan to investigate further. This is also the type of thing my local education foundation might award grants for; they like hands-on things. Then the next step is to incorporate the games more into the curriculum and collaborate with teachers. They will start to see some of these connections you so eloquently describe.
John,
This is just phenomenal, cutting edge, quality learning at its best. As we look at our students today, they come with multi-tasking and hands-on technology based strengths that we must address and respect as educators.
I’m reminded of two units just this year in my inclusionary, co-taught science teammate’s classroom. First was a team-based activity in which our 6th graders, many of whom are right-brained, and several of whom are also learning disabled, created balloon cars. They had to create prototypes, bring in materials from home, fashion cars powered by balloons, and race their classmates. It was so exciting for my colleague and I to have the role of facilitator as we watched students eagerly figure out why their cars weren’t worked, and trouble-shoot accordingly. Later as we reviewed for finals, she created a game based on the reality show Survivor, called Survivor Science complete with tribes of kids doing review challenges, earning immunity necklaces, and rewards, all surrounding a year’s worth of earth, physical and life science. How cool is it to WANT TO review for a final exam?!