In Learning, Playing and Designing: Video Games in Schools, the author discusses the “Quest to Learn” public school in New York City. The teaching methods in this school may be described as unorthodox, as they are rooted in the use of video games to teach students, rather than traditional teaching methods. The educators at this school “frame traditional curriculum units as complex challenges, each ten weeks long.”
“That mission is then broken down into a series of smaller quests. Each quest has a particular problem-space that the kids get dropped into.”
Coming from a family of public school teachers, I loved this article. Not every student processes things the same way, nor is there a perfect curriculum designed to meet the needs of every individual student. I’ve taught lessons to my sister’s 7th & 8th graders and getting them to engage is like pulling teeth. I end up spending $50 on candy, praying that at least 10 out of 25 will pay some semblance of attention.
But video games are an individual engagement, turning traditional learning into play. Sending them on an adventure not only stimulates their creative side, but also utilizes strategy and problem solving.
Salen, one of the school’s teachers, addressed one of the key elements that they had to overcome:
“One of the biggest pieces that we had underestimated was working with the parents in translating what was happening in the school in terms of models that were more familiar to them.”
If we utilized non-traditional tools more often, these methods would not be so foreign to parents when their children come home and are told that their homework comes in the form of a videogame.
Rheingold, H. “Learning, Playing, Designing: Video Games in School.” DML Central Web. 11 Mar. 2012. <http://dmlcentral.net/blog/howard-rheingold/learning-playing-designing-video-games-school>.