Learning from linguistics and video games- get the students ‘playing the game’, not ‘reading the manual’

Watch this video featuring Prof James Paul Gee:

The points James make in this video are particularly important at present with the increased emphasis being given to problem-solving on the maths GCSE. His insight that giving two students the same resource and it being concrete for one and abstract for another resulting from the differing prior life experiences (or lack thereof) they can bring to the resource is very important for teachers to understand when they are presenting students with increasingly contextual-based, problem-focused resources. My experiences as a teacher lead me to fully agree with James; ‘opportunity to learn’ isn’t just about the learning activities and resources you give students, it is also a function of the prior life (and learning) experiences they bring to the lesson. The prior learning experiences we do largely have control of, much of the life experiences we do not.

James talks about not being able to understand the specialist language in a video game manual until he has played the game and can run a visual simulation in his mind relating to each technical term. His metaphor is that in schools we need to get students ‘playing the game’ before we ‘give them the manual’ in relation to what we’re trying to teach them. I see the relevance of the metaphor; it makes sense to me and I agree with it based on my experiences as a teacher. Students typically find learning abstract topics more difficult than others. For example, algorithmically, adding fractions numerically and algebraically have exactly the same concept, but students can often struggle to see the similarity. It’s easier to visualise a numerical fraction addition rather than an algebraic one. The video has made me more certain than ever of the merits of the concrete-pictorial-abstract progression approach in teaching concepts.

If we are to take forward Gee’s metaphor we first need to ask ourselves, “what is ‘The Game’ we are trying to get students to play?” I hope our view is that it is broader than the GCSE exam they sit in Year 11. Perhaps looking at specific engagement triggers in video game design will help us?

A 2011 study by the Digital Games Research Association looked into the components of video games that give the players a desire to continue playing. I will discuss the big ones by first defining them and then relating to possible strategies that can be deployed in a maths classroom. In order of impact, largest to smallest the most important factors were:

Activity- Experiencing the Story

The study stated that whilst the specific individual components of a story that motivates players varies from person-to-person, there being a story-based narrative is the most important motivator in gamers wanting to continue playing the game. They want to know what happens next…

Possible strategies in a maths classroom?

1. Do we try to arrange our schemes of learning around the rich history of maths? There are many interesting and engaging stories in the history of maths- should we try to sequence them into our schemes of learning? Is the history of maths inherently engaging enough to be a story for teenagers to relate to?
2. End lessons with a ‘where could we go next?’ discussion
3. Start lessons with a problem we want students to solve, but can’t until they learn something new.
4. Focus on making the problems we are trying to get students to solve having a strong story-based narrative
5. Look into designing lessons based on the principles of the ‘Maths Quest’ book series Maths Quest Collection 4 Books Set (The Mansion of Mazes / The Museum of Mysteries / The Cavern of Clues / The Planet of Puzzles)
6. Show students your mid-term planning. I.e. “we’re learning these things so that we can put them together to be able to solve problems like this…”

Accomplishment- Completion

Having unfinished challenges and tasks to complete that are neither too easy or too hard is a strong motivator in video games. A sense of things not being finished is important in motivating gamers to continue playing.

Possible strategies in a maths classroom?

1. Use explicit video game language on resources? Speak of ‘challenges’, ‘levels (not in the NC sense!)’, ‘tasks’ etc and get students to write down their ‘task completion percentage’ on each worksheet?
2. Show students the whole scheme of learning and get them ticking things off as they learn topics
3. Give end-of-unit assessments which give percentage results. Students can resit them multiple times to get their score up to a pass.
4. Award ‘badges’ when students demonstrate mastery of topics/ sections in the scheme of learning etc. Consider digital options such as http://openbadges.org

Accomplishment- Progression

Closely related to Accomplishment-Completion, the Accomplishment-Progression factor is giving gamers a sense that they are moving forwards towards their completion goals. It is the feedback loops that are used to show gamers their progress. In games, these are often: points, scores, levels, stats, experience points, achievement points etc.

Possible strategies in a maths classroom?

1. Dedicated time for students to look back and reflect on what they can do now that they couldn’t a time ago
2. Pre-and-post unit testing with time to reflect on progress made
3. Using systems such as ClassCharts to actually award learning points
4. Do frequent low-stakes quizzes and record scores. Show students the progression in their scores over time
5. Explicitly take every opportunity to vocalise the progress students have made
6. Make sure feedback loops on student progress are tight. Waiting 2 weeks for a book-mark to find out you got an answer wrong is too long. Class mark everything for accuracy; even give students the answers so they can mark as they go.

Activity- Socialising

Working together with peers to complete a challenge in a game can often be more engaging than the challenge itself. Some gamers do not want to play games at all if they don’t have a multi-player option. Bragging rights and healthy competition, in order to earn respect from peers, are another element in this factor motivating some gamers.

Possible strategies in a maths classroom?

1. Consider class leaderboards, but keep them growth-mindset-friendly by ranking by progress rather than all-out achievement? Perhaps even base on learning behaviours rather than progress?
2. Include Kagan Strategies to structure activities in a way that promotes socialisation. I’ve personally had a lot of success in my classes with many of these strategies which certainly fulfill the criteria well.

Undoubtedly I’ll have missed out some potential strategies above that can be used in a maths classroom that would help students ‘play the game’. I’d be very grateful if you could add any further suggestions you have in the comment section below.

Ultimately no individual strategy will create a ‘game’ that students want to play. It is the intelligent selection and fusion of a variety of strategies in a consistent and polished way that will achieve Gee’s metaphor in practice.

Some final thoughts which could stimulate further discussion in the comments section:

• We should focus on the ‘experiencing the story’ element as the priority- the others are explicit motivators rather than intrinsic.
• Ultimately the main point here is about problem-solving; that’s what ‘the game’ is in maths. We could get too distracted by the other factors mentioned here which take students’ focus away from what ‘the game’ really is in maths.
• These ideas link well with Conrad Wolfram’s Computer-Based Math proposal
• Students still need to read the manual- this isn’t saying we should not explicitly teach students skills and spend some lessons on individual skill acquisition based learning. However, these would be more effective if they’d ‘played the game’ first as when we use technical vocabulary, they can run a visual simulation in their mind as to what it is referring to.
• Concrete-pictorial-abstract approaches need to be used wherever possible. We need to give students visual simulations to link abstract terms to
• Could the GCSE exam be used as ‘the game.’ Students know this is how they’ll be assessed at the end of the day and so do we cut to the chase and make this ‘the game’, perhaps only in KS4?

first seen http://www.greatmathsteachingideas.com