Farmville or Battlefield?

Posted on July 4, 2013 by knlistman

farm-field 2The of use video and computer games in education has sparked a bit of debate. On one side teachers see students doing something that they love to do, and hope games will promote this kind of engagement in learning. On the other hand is a growing concern that students also need to see learning as a responsibility and not expect it to be all play. A third concern  is whether games will actually cause the students to learn the skills we had planned for them to. Which brings about a fourth question. How do the students’ motivations for playing – and there are more than one – affect the outcome of instructional games?

When looking at games for education, I try to assess how skills used in the game will transfer to learning used in the world beyond the classroom. The FPS (first person shooter) type of game design seem to work best for improving speed at basic skills that should be automatic – such as word recognition, spelling and computation. But not everyone prefers this kind of game.

At the end of the semester, I strolled around a high school business information management class, most of the students have completed all assignments and are spending free time on the computers. About half the males were playing games. Many were competing against each other in a FPS game on a low resolution battle field. In another game, a boy threaded a cartoon-like biker through a maze of geometric terrain, and his friend watched as the biker lost cartoon-like blood and limbs. The other males were on YouTube. None of the females were playing games. For them FaceBook and YouTube came in as second choice to scrolling down screens filled with the latest fashion on Pinterest and Tumblr.

In a different class with this same sort of free-time, say a computer science, ninety percent of the class, females included, would be involved in gaming, some of it requiring long-term strategies. However, most of the students would be competing with their peers or watching the competition.  In an computer art class, there might be one person playing.

When I get home in the evening and check my e-mail there are all sorts of notifications from Facebook. My friends playing the new version of Farmville invite me to share their bounty, which evidently is worth points towards building a bigger farm. It is this kind of cooperative game, in which more friends offer opportunity to own more virtual goods, that many females teachers tend to favor. However, if they select educational games according to their tastes, they will lose a portion of the class that want action games or competition against real people.

The question of which kind of game promotes learning really needs to be revised to what range of games will engage all the students.

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Game-driven learning

Posted on July 4, 2013 by knlistman

wall screen copyPlaying games is fun. Make them available via internet on hand-held devices. Viola! endless access to fun. A recent invasion of such endless fun entered our schools in the form of an app called Fun Run.

Fun Run didn’t have sophisticated graphics or complex levels. Racing cute, furry creatures while dodging lightning bolts was  attractive because of live competition. Student could coordinate beginning of races and play against friends for bragging rights. They found it increasingly hard to give up this game for their studies. “No Fun Run” signs sprung up in classrooms. Teachers dream of a way to engage students in lessons as deeply as games. Should that be the wave of future education?

During the slowdown in classes that occurs around exam time, I observed high school students and talked to them about the attraction of gaming. First, I noted that normally about 20 to 25 percent of the students would select electronic game playing when allowed to do anything in a class (they all had some form of internet access). Gaming was simply more noticeable due to constant whoops and boasts of “Owned you!” and “Look at this score!” Interestingly, I saw some students watching the others play, but never participating themselves. Because, I did not focus on other activities selected during “down time,” I don’t have a comprehensive list sorted by percentages. However, talking with friends appeared to be the top choice.  Others were listening to music, sharing photos, watching videos, texting, drawing and reading. Evidently, any pedagogy built around the learning structures and rewards of gaming is not going to appeal to a large percentage of the students.

During discussions with students who preferred electronic games to other forms of entertainment, I found some recurrent themes. Game playing is adrenaline producing. This is interesting because the attention required for gaming tends to reduce social interaction. According to Marti Olsen Laney (psychotherapist and researcher) extroverts have a greater enjoyment of both adrenaline rushes and lengthy social interactions than introverts. [1]

The addictive nature of electronic games may results from the fact that that they provide one source of enjoyable stimulation while isolating people from a source of stress. These students felt gaming was a safe entertainment, a low stakes activity with the opportunity to practice and fail repeatedly. The learning curve was very gentle. Most of the time they did not have to think about which direction to put efforts as the game offered limited options. Students preferred games based on anticipating and making key presses accurately to those requiring higher level thinking skills.

Students definitely found electronic games more thrilling when they could play against other live people. As one said “Winning against a machine is not really winning.” (However, access to “cheats” was a popular way to short cut the time taken to master a game.) When I asked one student what he learned playing Fun Run, he answered “Nothing really, but I did learn how to spell playing a computer game.” As a dyslexic, he had not been able to memorize phonemes as rapidly as other students. He found the additional practice he required through a game-like computer program.

This is probably the true direction learning through gaming should take. Students learn more rapidly through direct instruction and practice more enjoyably through games. However, just as simple games are fads that students constantly abandon for the next new thriller, games for education will need to keep up with the thirst for billions of slightly challenging new levels.

Early in the “Fun Run” invasion I saw a girl ask a boy if she could borrow his phone to play this game.

“Didn’t renew it, got bored with it.” he replied.

“Ah,” she moaned looking downcast.

“Just playing with you,” he responded with a sly smile handing her the phone. Obviously playing the game was not one of his major motivations.

[1] Laney, Marti Olsen, The Introvert Advantage: Making the Most of Your Inner Strengths. Workman Publishing, 2002

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Why do I need to know this?

Posted on July 2, 2013 by knlistman
527px-Runge_Farbenkugel

Runge and munsell color spheres

Students often ask “Why do I need to know this?” not because the subject is irrelevant, but  because they struggle to learn. The answer to “How am I going to use this in real life?” depends on what their life will be like.

However, I am becoming increasingly conscious of a disquieting trend behind the questions about relevancy. Students want something that will grab their attention and draw them easily into learning. They want relief from the pressure of mental effort involved in learning – concentrating, focusing and making sense of information. Should educators play along with this trend and seek engage their students through wide range of “edutainment,” or take a different tactic?

One of the difficulties is the increasing amount of knowledge that students are supposed to master. Mastery, however, is often measured by memorization of data, rather than the ability to produce something useful from what have been taught. The tedious work that goes into building a car or researching a genealogy is bearable – even enjoyable – if there is a goal to aim towards.

In school, we supposedly learn information to expand our mind and think more deeply, and then we go on to jobs, where we learn more with the aim of gaining more money. Some people collects details of their acquaintances likes and dislikes, dealing in the social sphere to gain influence, while others seek to learn what is novel and innovative. Why the difference? We tend to learn based on how we believe it will serve us.

However,  we deceive students if we let them believe learning should always be fun and entertaining. There is a discipline required to incorporate information that is not inherently interesting. Yet, this type of learning is still necessary for performing in the real world. Most jobs require careful, conscientious work or dealing with volumes of information. As Adam Timothy pointed out students become invested in educational games and learn to memorize data (like computation tables). However when it is time to apply the learning, they stay on the gaming loop and continue to play rather than produce.[1]

The problem with disengaged students may not be with the instructional method, but the student’s lack of choice in determining a goal to work towards.

[1] Addiction vs. Reflection: Unlocking the Potential of Games Jan 2, 2013http://www.edutopia.org/blog/addiction-vs-reflection-gaming-potential-adam-timothy
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When does “engaging” interfere with learning?

Posted on June 29, 2013 by knlistman

055 monitor_child copyRecently, I was surprised to see an article by Ruth Clark entitled “Why Games Don’t Teach.” According to research, a simulation game made a less effective teaching tool than a computerized tutorial.[1] One of the things that I noted as my own children grew up with computers was that as learning games became more complex in use of visuals and audio, they often became less complex in the kind of thinking required to play them. Some of the earliest text based scenario games (like Oregon Trail) required more reflection from players on making decisions and keeping track of results than later games with beautiful graphics and audio.

How do more engaging games affect learning? At one point, I was attempting to give my daughter reinforcement on phonetic reading using a computer program that provided a game like atmosphere for read instruction. At first this seemed to work, but she just did not seem able to master a rhyming exercise. So I watched her. The animation of the alligator, followed by a fire-breathing dragon that occurred whenever students missed too many answers was so intriguing that she kept making mistakes on purpose. The same elements that made the game  emotionally engaging, prevented her from moving forward in learning phonetics.

I observed in schools as some students using computer games to learn math became frustrated because the “logic” of program was not same as theirs. The processes to learn math were developed by specialists in that field. But math problems can be worked in more than one way. Some alternative ways of solving a problem that makes less sense for an expert, makes more sense for the students. This occurs not only for application of math but also problem-solving in science, reading and writing.

Often students do not refuse to complete the work because it is not engaging, but because it requires an extended effort that they are not used to giving. When I would get my daughter started on a game requiring careful attention and problem-solving skills (like Oregon Trail) she would give up the first time her party died. So what are computer-based simulation games used for in education? Human factors research shows that cognitive overload limits human ability to integrate all the data that a computer can display.  When teaching we must show students not only how to use technology, but also how to keep track of data so they are not overloaded (or under challenged). This often requires one on one instruction and other students need to keep busy as the teacher provides this. Until the students have enough experience to be learning or creating on their own, an engaging (but not very deep) computer game as a tutor makes an excellent baby sitter in the classroom.

[1] Clark, Ruth. “Why Games Don’t Teach” Learning Solutions Magazine (February 19, 2013)

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How crazy are you?

Posted on June 28, 2013 by knlistman

Paris 2012 141La Pyramide inverted c copyRecently my daughter showed me an inverted Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, balanced on the tiny point of  self-actualization. It was the “Artist’s hierarchy of needs” because creating was more important than eating or sleeping. Despite Abraham Maslow’s theory that fulfillment of physical and psychological needs lead to self-actualization and creativity, creative people seem driven by something else. Something that often causes them to ignore basic needs.  So it’s time to give others their fair shake and look at some competing ideas about what constitutes creativity.

Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychotherapy, saw creativity as a socially acceptable defense mechanism for expressing socially unacceptable urges.  In other words being creative was the way to sublimate that pesky improper sex drive. He felt the creative process was driven by the unhappy suffering of unfulfilled fantasies. Basically being creative was akin to being neurotic.[1]

Sarnoff Mednick came up with the associative theory. Creativity is a response to stimulus (sort of like drooling when you smell fresh hot cinnamon rolls). When a stimulus hits the senses, a creative response would be to think of an extremely remotely related idea. This was tested using words, with the theory that the more remote the idea was from the original word, the more creative the person was. Mednick is most famous for his research that associates psychosocial disorders (i.e. acting like a criminal) with genes the you inherit from your parents.[2]

Carl Rogers saw creativity in a similar light to Abraham Maslow. He thought creativity was the result of healthy psychological growth, and the highest form of self-actualization.  He saw creative people as being wonderfully balanced, open to new experiences, with internally based control.[3] I’m sure most creative people would like to view themselves this way. However, many are honest and admit to deep insecurities. And of course, most of us have run into a few of the difficult, smug, prima donna types.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi does not see creativity as strictly residing within a person, rather it is an interaction between a person and society. Social systems and cultures determine what is creative and what is not. To be considered creative, an individual must strike a balance between coming up with a novel idea and relating to accepted conventions. Otherwise their work will not be viewed as creative. He also has the idea that when creative people are working they become so fulfilled in their involvement that they forget about other things – like food and sleep.[4]

Finally we come full circle to Albert Rothenburg who proposes that creative people use a certain kind of thinking that allows them to consider two opposite concepts at the same time – sort of like two objects occupying the same space resulting in something new. His research shows that creative thought processes are not logical and actually resembled those of the mentally ill. However, creative people are actually aware of that they are indulging in ‘crazy’ thinking while they are doing this – at least most of the time.[5]

[1] Rothenburg, A. &  Hausman. C., (1976). The creativity question.  Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
[2] Mednick. S. (1962) The associative basis of the creative process. Psychological Review. 69, 220-232.
[3] Rogers, C. (1962). Toward a theory of creativity. In Parnes, S. Harding, H. (Eds.) A source book for creative thinking. New York: Scribners.
[4] Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1988). Society, culture, and person: A systems view of creativity. In Sternberg, R. (Ed.), The nature of creativity. New York: Cambridge University Press.
[5] Rothenburg, A. &  Hausman. C., (1976). The creativity question.  Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

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The disadvantages of being creative

Posted on June 27, 2013 by knlistman

DSCN0774

Creative students often display characteristics that teachers simply do not like. When I asked teachers to rank students’ creative acts, many had trouble. Some called the students contrary, lazy or deceitful, and failed to see the creativity involved.

I’ve found the same conclusions reached by other researchers. J. Khatena teamed with E.P. Torrance, who developed many of the tests for creativity used by educators, to design an assessment called ‘What Kind of Person Are You?’ According to this assessment, Inquisitiveness, a creative characteristic, can be exhibited by talking a lot or demanding responses, especially by younger students. (How else can they inquire about things?)[1]

In addition, acceptance of authority – being obedient, respectful and polite, following rules, and accepting others in power – is indicative of a non-creative person. Creative students make judgments and evaluate situations for themselves, which means that they often do not do what they are told. Their actions are based on their own internal beliefs and desires.  On one hand educators praise intrinsic motivation, while dreading some students that are actually intrinsically motivated.

According the second part of the Khatena-Torrance Creative Perception Inventory, creative adolescents and adults are both open to new ideas and critical of other’s ideas. [2] This does not cause an inherent conflict for creative students as it does for others. However, the creative person tends to have fewer friends because many view criticism as a sign of rejection when it does not have to be. As creative students become older, they will not remain the same. They often increasingly prefer to work alone. This is not always because they desire solitude, but because they are aware that others suspiciously consider them to be different.  Their remoteness, a form of self-protection, is often viewed as snobbishness.

Of course, I realize all these characteristics can cause problems in class. What can one do? When my students butt heads with another teacher, I ask them to talk with the teacher outside of class. That is also the best way to deal with creative students if their actions are disruptive. Ask for a reason for the behavior. Then, politely explain why the behavior causes a problem and ask them what they think can be done about it. If they cannot come up with a workable solution, use your own. Also, I like to keep a collection of quiet, relevant and challenging independent activities creative students can do by themselves to avert disruptive behavior. Still, none of these techniques work all of the time.

The love-hate relationship with creativity and the creative person is not limited to education. In most aspects of life people desire the product of creativity, while avoiding the producer. This is complicated by the fact that creative people can become enemies of their creative cohorts in the competition to achieve. Perhaps the best thing a teacher could do is show a little empathy.

[1]  Torrence, E.P. & Khatena, J. (1970) What Kind of Person Are You? A brief screening device for identifying creatively gifted adolescents and adults. Gifted Child Quarterly, 14, 71-75
[2]  Khatena, G. & Torrence, E.P. (1998). Khatena-Torrance Creative Perception Inventory – Instruction Manual. Bensenville, IL: Scholastic Testing Service, Inc.

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Videomania III

Posted on June 26, 2013 by knlistman

DSC01420 w copy2 What about the claims that I’ve heard? Instruction through video is supposed to be more engaging, save more time and promotes better learning that using traditional methods, such as lecturing or reading assignments.

More engaging? Engagement level really depends on both quality and content of video. If the video narrator is no better at speaking than the live lecturer, the audience will pay less attention. Even if the visuals are more dramatic, they will simply divert the viewers’ attention, making it harder to remember what the narrator said. Most of what we learn comes through language, including the speaker’s body language and intonation. I’ve heard high school students describe a video series in which the narrator’s peppy voices reeked of condescension, making it hard for them to pay attention to what was actually said. Obviously, instructional videos are more engaging if professionally produced and audience-appropriate. What is not so obvious is how to create this kind of video consistently for all content. Choose videos for your class wisely.

Save time? This is an interesting claim because listening to a reading level recorded book takes the average students about three times longer than reading it silently.  The addition of the audio, appealing visuals, varied repetition  and  intermittent drama or humor make the video more interesting and facilitate learning. But these also add time to the video. They usually end up presenting less information in the same amount of time than a well-organized lecture or reading assignment.

Promotes better learning? Textbook and manuals are meant for reference, not reading straight through. Scripts for videos normally condense the data-laden text and do not cover as much. Typically information is reorganized and reduced to emphasize overall objectives before being produced as a video. Most videos provide a good introduction, or special interest investigation, not a complete course. Students who have little prior knowledge or a lot of difficulty reading will learn more from videos. Students with more prior knowledge and higher reading skills tend to learn less from videos than traditional methods. Also, monitoring learning during a video is essential. Stop the video at regular intervals to provide interaction –  students need to practice what they have learned and have their questions answered.

Videos do work for instruction, but they are only part of the learning equation.

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Videomania II

Posted on June 25, 2013 by knlistman

Photographer aVideos are often promoted as the best way to educate a population marked by decreasing literacy. I often hear “teenagers watch tons of videos on YouTube,” as a reason to depend on videos in the classroom. A more sophisticated explanation might be that videos increase learning through multi-sensory instruction  – The synergy of sensory input of from sound and visuals can teach more than the spoken word alone.

Of course technology does not always improve the appeal of multi-sensory instruction. Think about it – which would be more interesting, watching a full-sized live performance or a recorded version on a five-inch screen? Of course, technology makes it more convenient (much easier to share a video on an iPhone than to transport a band). So now there are massive numbers of videos that we can beckon with the touch of our fingertips.

Simply video-taping myself teaching will make me less interesting to students (even if it will make me available at any time). So why are students constantly watching videos of each other on YouTube? Content – People in embarrassing situations, humorous spoofs and acts that defy reality are entertaining, but entertaining doesn’t always equate to educating.  Everyone likes to see movies starring themselves. I suppose if I could arrange for students to enact a lesson on triangle theorems and proofs, they would watch it raptly, absorbing every detail. However, no one else would pay attention to it.

Actually, we cheat students out of something that they need if we rarely require them to read content. They do not have the option of recording or videotaping their homework; they must write it. Normally tests are written – not videos. As e-learning becomes popular, videos are increasingly used to break the monotony of participating in isolation. However, as it becomes a prevalent medium of communication it loses its appeal due to overuse. I recently saw e-learning video on psychology, on which a viewer had posted the comment – “Why does everything have to be a video. I can read, why don’t you let me read?”

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Videomania

Posted on June 23, 2013 by knlistman

aside

It was almost lunch time and the majority of the students had finished their worksheet. The classroom teacher had decided it would be no imposition for him to leave early, so I was left in charge. A few girls in the back were chatting about a YouTube featuring a teenage girl consuming a disgusting item, trying to figure out how it was faked. I was politely prodding  a boy who had spent much of class simply staring at the textbook. Swiveling his head, he attempted to flag their attention, eager to get the YouTube link.

So I asked “Why did you need to know it?”

“I need to see the video.”

“But it’s is faked.”

“Well, it’s just the thought of it.” he grinned evidently pleased at the sickening image he imagined.

“What is the use of watching something that really isn’t  happening?”

“Who cares as long as it is interesting. It’s more interesting than chemistry,” he shot back.

There are a few ways I could respond:

1) Explain how there would be no such thing as videos on YouTube without the contribution of chemistry savvy individuals in the fields of photography, film, and integrated circuits. However, due to these innovative people (plus software experts) video encoding can be done by the average second grader. With advance knowledge in science no longer necessary to do so many tasks due to electronic devices, this student may see no motivation to learn them.

2) Try to point out that real information is bound to be more useful that than a obvious fabrication. Although this seems obvious, it is extremely hard to combat the human attraction for the sensational story.  As journalist Robert Bianco noted concerning movies, “The preference for fiction over fact is hardly a new phenomenon.”[1] This student was searching for something interesting little concern about the truthfulness or applicability of what he learned.

3) Find a video with adequately realistic disgustingly gross scenes to teach the procedures that this student found boring. Despite the myriad entertaining videos on the Internet, those with adequate instruction in stoichiometry are mostly words on a screen or writing on a board. If attention grabbing sequences are added to this kind of instruction, students pay attention to these scenes and not the instructions for solving the problems.

4) Inform the student that learning applications in chemistry will lead to higher thinking skills. Although this may be true there is no evidence that higher thinking skills can be transferred from chemistry to designing software or interpreting a novel. If his career goals are not going to require any further knowledge of chemistry, he might as well be studying complex problem solving in some other domain.

5) I asked the student what he felt he needed to learn in order to do what he wanted to do. He said he was planning joining in the army and become a gunner in a helicopter. I responded from my experience as creating lessons for a newly armed version of an army observation helicopter (OH58-D) during the time of the Gulf War.

“You need to know basic chemistry and physics both if you are going to be dealing with ordnances.” I said.

“I’m not going to do that, I’m going to be a gunner,” he declared, repeating the thrilling description that an army veteran had given him.

I hope most high school students will not have as rude an awakening as he will, if he ever reaches his dream job.

[1] Bianco, Robert. On Video, Wilmington Morning Star, Friday  June 26, 1998

 

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Generation A

Posted on June 21, 2013 by knlistman

Picture 070 (72) copyRecently I was sitting in the dentist’s office waiting. Across from me was a father and his son that couldn’t have been more than three. The child intently maneuvered a tiny race car across the screen of an iPhone. He gave a little scream of delight with each success.

I was amazed at his ability, but evidently he had been practicing for awhile. The man kept warning “my battery will be dead soon.” The screams of delight just got louder. Eventually reaching an ear-splitting pitch as the child continued to play while dodging his father who was trying to retrieve his phone. This was not the first preschooler that I had seen addicted to gaming – just the most obnoxious.

Digital natives, generation net or generation Z are nicknames given to those who have never known any society but that in which media provided by the internet was wherever they went. However, I think some are morphing into a new group, Generation A. But the A doesn’t stand for addicted – addiction has been with us through many generations. Many times recently I have read that instruction should be delivered in short, attention grabbing  interactive segments because that is what the upcoming generation expects. The gamification of education has been encouraged. If we achieve it, what do we lose?

Psychiatrist Daniel Amen has interviewed parents whose children play video games so much that their schoolwork and other activities are ignored. They show withdrawal symptoms, even going into screaming tantrums of fear when forced to stop playing. The children suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD).[1] Increased symptoms of that disorder may be one of the defining marks of the upcoming Generation A.

Evidently there is a correlation between ADD/ADHD (the hyperactive variety) and the non-stop availability of electronic media. Research conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health reached the following conclusion: “Extensive exposure to television and video games may promote development of brain systems that scan and shift attention at the expense of those that focus attention.”[2]

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have recorded a rise in ADHD for over a decade; diagnosed cases increase at the rate of about 3% a year since 1996. Younger children are increasingly exposed to the brilliant and rapid scene changes in media. According to Dr. Dimitri Christakis this may condition their brains to expect excessive stimulation. The normal world becomes “underwhelming.” Studies of students  show that the distractions offered by technology interfere with their attention when they are working. They can multi-task, but everything takes longer to complete. Finishing a task on a computer in an efficient and timely manner becomes increasingly difficult as updates clamor for attention.[3]

Often, I feel the pressure to deliver instruction in short concise chunks with intense audio and video to banish boredom in education. This is supposedly necessary for a generation who are used to having their attention grabbed by addictive bursts of stimuli. However, are we doing them a disservice? Are we making the next generation one increasingly inflicted with ADHD?

[1] Amen D (2001) Healing ADD: The Breakthrough Program That Allows You to See and Heal the 6 Types of ADD, New York, NY: G.P. Putnam— s Sons
[2] Jensen PS, Mrazek D, Knapp PK, Steinberg L, Pfeffer C, Schowalter J, Shapiro T (1997) — Evolution and Revolution in Child Psychiatry: ADHD as a Disorder of Adaptation— Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 36:1672-1679.
[3] Rosen, L.D. (2012) iDisorder: Understanding Our Obsession with Technology and Overcoming Its Hold on Us: Macmillan  

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