Playing to learn: Panelists at

Stanford discussion say using

games as an educational tool
provides opportunities for deeper
learning
Interaction and opportunities to make choices are among the virtues of the new
generation of educational games, experts say.

BY R. F. MACKAY

Games help us develop non-cognitive skills, which are as fundamental as cognitive skills in
explaining how we learn and if we succeed, according to the panelists.
We may think we’re pretty smart, but in fact we have very little notion of how humans learn.
Kids know: They play games. Until, that is, they go to school. That’s when the games stop.
And often, so does the learning.

That was the sad panorama painted by a panel of distinguished experts on education and
“gamification” who nonetheless were optimistic about the promise of using games in
pedagogy.

The panel discussion, held at the Graduate School of Education (GSE) on Feb. 26, was part
of the yearlong public course, Education’s Digital Future (Educ 403x). Roy Pea, co-
convener of the class and a professor in the GSE, introduced the speakers by noting that what
he called “gaming to learn” has been around Stanford for close to a decade. (One of the
speakers later noted that Wikipedia claims that Stanford students in 1971 invented the first
known instance of a coin-operated video game.) But it is only recently that gamification’s
possibilities in the realm of education truly have been appreciated.

Bringing games to bear in education is not a matter of dumbing down. Constance

Steinkuehler, an associate professor of digital media at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
and co-director of the Games+Learning+Society (GLS) center there, noted that “it turns out
games are hard.” If indeed humans think immeasurably better as part of a network than on
their own, then games are an obvious terrain in which to set minds free and let them wander
around, interacting with whatever or whomever they encounter. The system of points,
badges, rewards and leaderboards featured in most massively multiplayer online (MMO)
games can be replicated in an educational context, experts say, to account for people’s
different motivations and needs for interaction or self-expression.

Freedom and choice

Tuesday’s panelists, among the field’s leading figures in academia, design and policy, zeroed
in on freedom and choice as crucial factors in explaining why and how children learn.

“I think we’re all impressed by how stupid humans are,” remarked James Gee, a professor of
literacy studies at Arizona State University, who holds degrees in philosophy and linguistics
from Stanford. “It reaches almost epic proportions. We’re stupid in dozens and dozens of
ways.
“But human minds are plug-and-play devices; they’re not meant to be used alone. They’re
meant to be used in networks.” Games allow us to do that – they allow us to use what Gee
calls “collective intelligence.” Collectively, we’re not so stupid.

Further, games help us develop non-cognitive skills that the panelists agreed are as
fundamental as cognitive skills in explaining how we learn and if we succeed. According to
Gee, skills such as patience and discipline, which one should acquire as a child but often
does not, correlate with success better than IQ scores do. And those non-cognitive skills –
that is, not what you know but how you behave – are far better suited to a game context than
to a traditional classroom and textbook context.

Steinkuehler, who just finished a two-year stint as senior policy analyst at the White House
Office of Science and Technology Policy, described her research at the University of
Wisconsin. Her GLS group found that choice was critical for ultimate performance.
Research shows that boys typically read a couple of grades below level in school, but these
same boys, it turns out, read texts way above their grade level if the texts are part of online
games. This was a puzzle, and Steinkuehler wanted to figure it out. A series of tests,
accompanied by pizza, showed that if the boys could choose what they read, which they
could do with online games, they pushed themselves harder. That result held for boys who
were struggling to begin with and for those who already were on track.

“Games are architectures for engagement,” Steinkuehler said, and her work with the boys
showed why engagement matters. It was another example of Gee’s “collective intelligence.”

Similarly, Malcolm Bauer, formerly a professor at Carnegie-Mellon University and current

director of assessment at GlassLab, situated at Redwood City-based Electronic Arts and part
of the Institute of Play nonprofit design studio, recounted his youth in New York City
playing arcade games. There, he and his brother had a community that collaborated, took
risks, built stuff and had fun. But when time ran out, this future computer scientist would
trudge back home to do his homework.

“People play everywhere except in school,” he said. At GlassLab, his group tries to find
digital analogs for teachers’ assessment practices. He also pointed out that rewards go way
beyond simple stars. Variation can also be a reward for good work. Better questions, in other
words, and more difficult tasks.
Dan Schwartz, professor of education at the GSE, was the final speaker. He runs the AAA
Lab at Stanford – a technology and learning lab where he and his collaborators have
confirmed that current learning measures do not match up with games. This is a problem;
either you change the games, “making them more schoolish,” or you change the
measurement terms.

“Games allow us to measure learning in ways we couldn’t do before,” he said. And, he

added, echoing Gee’s discussion of non-cognitive learning, “knowledge is not the outcome
we want; we want students to learn how to make choices.” In studying how kids played
games, his group found that one of the best negative predictors of performance was the act of
walking away after failure. Low scores themselves were far less significant than
abandonment, and abandonment is a measurement that does not exist in a traditional
classroom.

Access
During the lively conversation that followed the presentations – the overflow crowd included
designers, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, students, teachers and professors –one student
asked how gamification could be made available to poor children. How can they get access
to games that might teach them far more than they learn with textbooks?

“Access doesn’t solve the equity problem,” Gee noted. “It is conversation that is crucial to
how literacy develops; it’s interaction. The crucial thing with books is that you learn to read
like a writer, you think about how it was designed. The same things are absolutely true about
digital media. Giving a kid the game won’t work. You have to get the kid to play like a
designer. You have to interact. Lots of charity groups say let’s give them games. But we
didn’t solve the problem by giving them books.”

The traditional classroom, panelists agreed, in many ways stifles some of the attributes most
crucial for human learning: persistence, risk taking, collaboration, problem solving.
Attributes all found back in Bauer’s childhood arcade.

R. F. MacKay is a writer for the Office of the Vice Provost for Online Learning.

https://news.stanford.edu/2013/03/01/games-education-tool-030113/

So what can we do to make games more effective for learning. Here are three
suggestions:
1. Keep the gap between the game skills and the real world (including
the real world of school) skills small. In other words make sure what
happens in the game looks a lot like what you want students to do in
the classroom. If you want students to get good at solving equations like
3x + 4 = 12, point them to games that share that format. But won’t those
be boring games? Not necessarily. Sushi Monster is pretty cute, and the
math is transparent. Remember, repetitive practice is tedious, but it’s how
we get good at things. In sports we invent all kinds of little games to add a
bit of spice to repetitive tasks. If students see these games as vehicles for
helping them get better for winning the bigger curriculum game (and they
care about passing the class) then they’ll be even more motivated to play.
The many games in MATH 180’s Brain Arcade are integrated into the
blended curriculum. Learn the math to get better at the games. Play the
games to get further in the curriculum.

2. Use the games intentionally as reference models to support the

curriculum, particularly ideas that are hard to conceptualize. Supply
and demand, moral conflict, inverse relationships, and causation vs.
correlation are all examples of concepts that can be difficult to understand
in the abstract. Examples help, and examples that are dynamic, that allow
you to see how the concepts work under different conditions, are
particularly helpful. Games and simulations can provide these dynamic
or “runnable mental models”. Even one of many simple versions
of Lemonade Stand can be a vehicle for helping students grasp supply &
demand. What happened in the game when you made a lot of lemonade
(high supply) but a cool, rainy day kept customers away (low demand)?
How did price affect behavior? As the models get more complex, as with
something like SimCity, the need for teacher support becomes even more
critical. You can’t depend on students making the connections
themselves. Purposefully integrating the game into the iterative learning
process – playing around in a game, learning some concepts, trying the
concepts out in the game, reflecting on the game and concept connection,
trying something new in the game, and so on –will help make the learning
meaningful and deep.

3. Going even further, you can look to make the game and the curriculum
the same. Military, medical, and even car racingsimulations are
designed to mimic the real life skills, tools, and situations soldiers,
 doctors, and even race car drivers experience. These games and the
curriculum are built together. The game incorporates the instructional
objectives and strategies, supporting the training of the learner. If the
simulation game is built correctly, getting good at the game means getting
good at the real thing. These realistic, immersive environments are just
emerging in the K-12 world, but they offer a way to directly connect the
real world to an enhanced virtual one. Even so, reflection still makes a
difference and enhances transfer across contexts.
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2014-07-11-three-ways-to-make-games-more-effective-for-learning

10 Strategies To Make Learning Feel More Like A Game

1. Create Student Designers
To immerse students in gamification, start by allowing them to create the narrative of
their class. By involving students in the class design, students can express creativity while
creating a learning space in which they can excel.

2. Allow Second Chances

And third. And fourth. Like in games, students should be allowed second chances when
they fail. Students are then able to try, learn from mistakes, and succeed, eliminating the
pressure and stigma of failure.

3. Promote Collaborative Feedback

Feedback is essential in any game or classroom. Group students into learning ‘teams,’
where they can work together on assignments, provide feedback, and receive support
from the instructor as needed. Games encourage teamwork and the teammates often
give as much feedback as the coach.

4. Use Levels & Progress Bars

Literally.

Instead of using grades and percentages, teachers can issue progress bars that gauge
student progress. When assignments, tests, or projects are completed, a certain amount
of points can be added to a student’s progress bar, bringing them closer to reaching the
next level.
Kids love seeing visible progress. In fact, we all do.
5. Introduce Challenges
Motivate students to advance their learning through self-directed instruction by allowing
them to add epic elements to work and projects. Introduce a project as a quest or
mission that fits within the class narrative. This will draw students in to learning in a new,
fun, and exciting way.

6. Emphasize Student Power & Choice

Gamified classrooms allow students to choose different paths in learning the curriculum.
This choice allows students to creatively foster and apply their knowledge while
solidifying a sense of pride and ownership in their work.

7. Use Badges & Rewards

Badges and rewards provide a tangible symbol of achievement that is effective in
celebrating student accomplishments, incentivizing students to continue raising their
efforts, and raising student confidence.
8. Integrate Class-Wide Achievements
Teachers can implement class-wide reward systems, where everyone can celebrate
individual and collaborative accomplishments. Rewards can be issued to the class when
students reach certain goals. This builds student camaraderie, support, and a
collaborative desire to succeed.

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12 Of The Most Common Types Of Blended Learning
9. Use Smart Technology
The 21st-century learner is already accustomed to using technology daily. Classroom
management systems ClassRealm, ClassDojo, and Gamestar Mechanic are good tools
that can help teachers enhance the gamified experience.

10. Emphasize Skills Mastery

The emphasis of gamification is to provide students with a fluid environment of self-
directed learning. Emphasize the use of critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration,
creativity, and application.
https://www.teachthought.com/learning/10-strategies-to-make-learning-feel-more-like-
a-game/