Comment on Sirtimothy's post: "Wayne and the Brain"

Hi Sir Timothy

This is a great post! You've covered so much already, I am not sure there is much left to say! But since we are all starting to agree that teaching is a profession and an intellectual pursuit, and teaching students is as important as teaching subjects, I will focus on Wayne's students' behavior and look for possible solutions to improve their learning conditions.

Wayne needs to worry about his students who are distracted and tired. Maslow's pyramid of need (Churchill, Chapter 3, p78) suggests that if the basics human needs are not met, the highest levels of need can not be attained. Therefore, lack of sleep and constant tiredness will interfere with development and learning. The reason for this condition could very well be drugs or alcohol abuse, as Wayne suggested. As a future high school teacher, I feel concerned about the subject. How do drugs and alcohol interfere with adolescents' development and learning and what is our role and responsibilities toward keeping our students safe and out of dangerous behavior? The short term consequences of excessive drinking like hangover, headaches, nauseas will make a day at school and learning very difficult, but alcohol have also long term effect on the developing brain as it may affect areas undergoing dramatic changes during teenage year like the frontal lobe and the hippocampus which are associated with reasoning, learning and memory formation (Gogtay et al, 2004). Schools are provided with a large range of resources on alcohol and drug awareness to support the implementation of drug and alcohol education (see:school drug and alcool education ) and teachers are responsible for keeping themselves and their students aware of the dangers of alcohol and drug abuse. Discussing the problem and the attitude to adopt with the school counselor and the principal is also the teacher's responsibility if he suspects that a student is putting himself in danger.

A second group of students is showing signs of anxiety. Anxiety is often exacerbated in adolescents due to a myriad of pressures: social, physical, increased performance at school, exams and focus on career choices. These topics should be discussed in class and students will benefit from group work and peer learning as shown from Vygotsky's sociocultural theory (Wells, 1999). Anxiety could also be the result of too challenging work. Vygotsky points out the importance for students to learn within their zone of proximal development (ZPD, see Churchill, Chapter 3, p77). If the challenge is too low, the students are bored, but if the challenge is too high, it would result in anxiety and lost of engagement. Differentiating learning experiences and proposing choices of tasks will help to keep students within their ZPD (Churchill, Chapter 7, p 208).

Wayne should always remember that “the adolescent brain is a work in progress” and that nurturing this development is as important as their academic achievement (Churchill, Chapter 3, p88).


Reference: 

Gogtay et al, (2004) Dynamic mapping of human cortical development during childhood through early adulthood. Proceeding of the National Academy of Science of the USA 101(21):8174-8179.

Churchill et al, (2011) Teaching, making a difference. Chapter 3 and 7.

Wells et al. (1999) Dialogic inquiry: Toward a sociocultural practice and theory of education. Cambridge University Press, New York. 

School drug and alcool education: http://www.edna.edu.au/edna/go/schooled/school_theme_pages/drugs

Wayne and the Brain:  http://sirtimothy.wordpress.com/2011/04/06/wayne-and-the-brain/

Why we shouldn't miss our ELPC G1 Tutes!

What do parents think?

With the 3rd provocation in mind “To whom am I accountable?”, I am thinking about an important player in the implementation of video games in the classroom: parents. So, what do parents think about using video games in the classroom?

Despite the findings showing that video game-based learning improves students motivation and stimulates deep and creative learning, the perception of parents is often negative and their opinions greatly influence the decision to use them in a classroom setting. In order to understand the reasons behind these beliefs, a study has been conducted based on a survey about video games involving 858 parents of secondary school students in Flanders (Bourgonjon, 2011).

The survey reveals that:
- the majority of parents had no experience with video games and this lack of experience resulted in a diminished belief in the learning opportunities offered by video games and little confidence in their choice as a pedagogical tool.
- parents believe in both positive and negative effects of video games. They believe there is some truth in the negative messages portrayed by the media and are displeased with the content of certain video games. However, they also believe the games offer some learning opportunities and children favor their use in the classroom but these idea is not always supported by the teachers.

These findings are important for teachers to keep in mind when proposing to parents the use of video games as a learning tool. For parents, we need to help develop their understanding of the potential learning opportunities offered by video games. We could achieve this by gathering specific information regarding the learning opportunities from different sources while at the same time providing an opportunity for hands-on experience with educational video games.


References:

Bourgonjon, J. Valcke, M. Soetaert, R. de Wever, B. Schellens, T. (2011) Parental acceptance of digital game-based learning. Computers & Education Vol. 57 pp1434-1444.

Games for learning assistance

In this post, I will discuss a very interesting application for the use of video games in helping students with special needs. In his paper, Wayne Holmes (2011) followed a group of young children between 8.5 and 10.5 years of age with severe literacy difficulties, all with a reading age more than two years below their chronological age. He studied the effect of a literacy program, based on a video game called Catch Up Literacy, to support their literacy development at home.

The author found that students really liked the gaming approach, the graphics and animations, the feedback and the challenges of beating their best time. Parents appreciated the benefit of being able to support their child's learning as well as the quality time spent with their child. However, most of the parents did not use the guide and complained about the lack of instruction and the the loss of interest from the children after the novelty had worn off - mainly because the children played the game randomly instead of following the order recommended in the user guide or because they repeated the games that they found easy and then lost interest.

The latter observations can be explained in light of the findings presented in my first 2 posts (“A good game” and “Go with the flow”). To keep the player motivated, the task has to be challenging but achievable. If the task is beneath their capability, the player becomes bored but if it is beyond their capability, the player fails and gives up. This points out the importance of good game design in order to maintain students' engagement and motivation.

These findings open new horizons for the potential of video games in supporting students who need individual remedial learning by creating a structure at home that both parents and children find enjoyable.


References:

Holmes, W. (2011) Using game-based learning to support struggling readers at home. Learning, Media and Technology. Vol. 36, No.1, pp5-19.

Fighting Mr. X

Competition can be used in the classroom to enhance motivation, excitement and involvement of learners in their activity. However, research has shown the possible negative effects of competition on human interactions including less effective communication within the cooperative team and decrease of overall performance gains as well as interpersonal relationships (Johnson, Johnson and Maruyama, 1983).

This paper (Yu, 2003) explores the possibility of educational video games (in this case a Monopoly-like video game named “Joice”) to offer anonymity or physical separation while interacting within a networking system and their effects on classroom atmosphere and group processes. Pairs of students were set to compete either face-to-face, separated by at least 15 feet but aware of the name of their competitors or in an complete anonymous setting where the pairs of students did not know the names of the competing pair. After the game, they were asked to answer a survey exploring their perceptions of the classroom climate and the group process. The results of the survey showed that anonymity and reduced proximity minimized in-group process losses associated with face-to-face competition and increased teammate interactions and good communication within the group.

The implications of these results are particularly important for educational game designers as it suggests that anonymity is a useful feature in the design of the games. It also underlines the positive and negative aspects of competitive environment in education as well as the effect of anonymity on students communication in a social networking environment.


References:

Johnson, D.W., Johnson, R.T., and Maruyama, G. (1983). Interdependence and interpersonal attraction among heterogeneous and homogeneous individuals: A theoretical formulation and a meta-analysis of the research. Review of Educational Research, 53, 5-54.

Yu, F.Y. (2003). The mediating effects of anonymity and proximity in an online synchronized competitive learning environment. J.Educational Computing Research, Vol. 29(2) pp153-167.

Go with the "flow"!

I found the next article (Admiraal, 2011) very relevant not only in terms of video games as a learning tool but also as a source of motivation and engagement in any educational activity. It refers to the concept of 'flow'  defined by Csickszentmihalyi in 1990 as “a state of deep absorption in an activity that is intrinsically enjoyable”.

One of the main problems of today's high school students is their under achievement due to boredom or disengagement from learning process. So, how do we engage and motivate our students to maximise the learning experience?

Flow occurs when there is a balance between challenge and skills. However, this balance is easily disrupted resulting in either anxiety (high challenge, low skills) or boredom (low challenge, high skills).

The concept of Flow (Csickszentmihalyi, 1990): 

The effect of flow on game performance and learning outcomes was studied on secondary school students using a computer game about medieval Amsterdam called “Frequency 1550” (Admiraal, 2011).  The study showed that students were deeply engaged with the game, but sometimes were distracted by solving problems related to technology and navigation.  The main effect of flow was shown to increase game performance but not necessarily their learning outcome (as measured against level of knowledge of medieval Amsterdam).  Learning outcomes were influenced by distractive activities and team competition: when students were less distracted, they were more engaged with group competition and therefore increased their learning  outcome.

The implication for using educational computer games is that the concept of flow is directly related to increased motivation and concentration but its effect on learning outcome depends on the level of distraction and involvement in group competition . However, the experience of flow being enjoyable, it is likely to be repeated and this concept by itself is worth being explored in terms of increasing motivation and engagement in education.


Reference:

Admiraal, W. Huizenga, J, Akkerman, S. ten Dam, G. (2011) The concept of flow in collaborative game-based learning. Computer in Human Behavior 27 pp 1185-1194.

Csickszentmihalyi, M. (1990) Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper-Perennial.

A good game

My topic for this second series of posts is educational video games. I'd like to explore different aspects of them, from the pedagogical benefits to problems we may encounter while using video games in the classroom.

My first paper ( What makes a good learning game? By Simon Egenfeldt-Nielson) discusses the different components of video-games and the essential qualities we have to look for in a good learning game. The author describes the two essential components of a video game as the substantives and the verbs. The substantives are what you see. It makes up the story and the environment. The verbs are what you do in the game. They are about making decisions and seeing the consequences in the form of feedback and rewards system regulated by the rules of the game.

Three factors are essential for a good design:
- Integration: learning is an essential part of the game. It means that students need to master the learning goals to succeed. Curriculum should be integrated in both the environment (the substantives) and the actions (the verbs).
- Motivation: the advantages of using a game format are attraction and motivation. It is used to engage and attract students interest and requires a good rewards, feedback and consequences system. The player is motivated when challenged and the progression follows the “flow”theory (see post 2: Go with the “flow”!)
- Focus: this part relates to the meaning of both verbs and substantives. The learning experience can be integrated within the setting of the game (the substantives) but if it is not integrated within the verbs, the focus of the learning experience will be lost.

I believe this article points out essential fields that we as teachers have to take into consideration when looking at the pedagogical value of a learning game. The integration of the curriculum in both the setting and the actions is as important as the motivation and the engagement values of the game.

A beautiful example is shown in the following video where a teacher guides his students through the setting of a video game in order to engage them, motivate them and stimulate their creativity resulting in a better quality writing.

Reference:

Elearn magazine: What makes a good learning game? By Simon Egenfeldt-Nielson.

Youtube: Creative writing with computer games