A while back Erin sent us a copy of James Gee's article, "Good Video Games and Good Learning" (which is also available on the web from this link) and a digest (which she compiled, along with Rebecca Tiger) of some of the things Gee talked about when he visited CUNY in December.
I think that both the article and their distillation of his lectures provide some provocative launching points for our conversations here. What is interesting to me is emphatically *not* anything in particular about video games themselves but rather the extrapolated paradigms for learning and assessment.
For this reason, I am reposting Erin and Rebecca's summary below in hopes that some of you will feel compelled to respond--I urge you also to take a look at the article, if you get a chance.
Dr. James Gee visited CUNY in December 2007, and presented to our Coordinated Undergraduate Education (CUE) council, held a discussion with WAC/WID coordinators, and gave a public lecture on “Literacies, Learning, and Video Games.” Dr. Gee is a sociolinguist who has spent much of his life studying language, learning and literacy. Recently, he has argued that video games embody long-held learning principles, and further, that such games engage learners in ways that traditional approaches to education do not. He writes of the need for active, situated, and critical learning, and his understanding of how and where such learning happens—and where it does not—has profound implications for higher education today.
During his visit, Dr. Gee reiterated many themes that we have attempted, here, to distill. Clearly, it is difficult to summarize hours of lively conversation into a few bullet points. Rather than providing a comprehensive summary, the following is offered to help us think about our current work.
A New Paradigm of Learning
* The role of the teacher is to structure experiences that are platforms for learning.
* Academic language is alienating – it’s taught as a bunch of content. Surface words do not lead to “deep conceptual understanding” because students can’t apply it beyond the testing situation. Few people read an operating manual before playing a video game or using a computer program, yet students are typically asked to read a chemistry textbook and retain that information outside of its meaningful context. Gee asks: can you imagine reading a bunch of rules for basketball, and then being asked to play the game? The rules make sense after one has engaged in the game, when terminology is assigned to lived experiences.
* Deep learning emerges from a passion, which serves as the motivation to engage in difficult reading and writing tasks. Around games spring up passionate communities, in which members share information, argue, and set standards for participation. Communities are structured around a “passion” that community members share rather than content they need to memorize.
* Games offer an alternate “ecology of reading and writing,” one that is “just in time and on demand.” When they desire information, learners will engage with difficult texts. Despite dire pronouncements to the contrary, students are reading and writing more than ever in communities where they receive regular feedback.
* Failure is a core learning device – Failure is a part of the learning process – (“fail early, fail often”) – it is through failing the people learn the limits and the challenges of the game. Failure cannot have consequences so severe that participants lose motivation to participate. Rather than being rejected or kicked out for failure, the community welcomes you back in to try again.
A New Paradigm of Assessment
* Where and when should assessment take place? Formative and summative assessments should be integrated into the structure the activity, assessment should not be separated from the activity it is evaluating. In a video game, the player always knows how he or she is performing, often in relation to other players, and this information can be used to improve one’s performance. One is not assessed only after the game is over. Assessment should be ongoing, continuous.
* Who should do the assessing? Communities – such as writing communities – decide when a member has mastered the genre. These “community-created standards” will replace the “old grammar of schooling” where standards are set and judged by people outside of the community. Community members learn to think abstractly because they are placing demands on one another – they are both producers and consumers in this process of on-going assessment.
* What should be assessed? We should be striving to instill “genuine conceptual understanding” (rather than getting students to pass tests that are disconnected from any activity besides testing) and “deep conceptual understanding” that goes beyond surface words and content language. We should be assessing what students can do, not just what they write on paper.