Here is a response to a recent question I had about cultural differences in education.

Teaching is a cultural activity. Some people think of teaching as an innate skill, something you are born with. Others think that teachers learn to teach by enrolling in college teacher-training programs. Teaching is a cultural activity because it is learned through informal participation over long periods of time. It is something one learns to do more by growing up in a culture than by studying it formally.

       

      As a continuation to the above question about teaching being a cultural activity, here are some observations done from a study called TIMSS.  TIMSS stands for Third International Mathematics and Science Study. It was a comprehensive cross-national comparison of achievement study intended to investigate math and science achievement among fourth, eighth, and twelfth grade students in forty-one countries. Here are lessons learned from that study. 

        The major facts learned from the lessons are the following:

       

      In Germany, teachers are in charge of the mathematics, which is quite advanced. In many lessons, teachers lead students through a development of procedures for solving general classes of problems. There is a concern for technique, where technique includes both the rationale that underlies the procedure and the precision with which the procedure is executed. Developing advanced procedures is a good motto for the German teaching method.

      

In Japan, teachers appear to take a less active role, allowing their students to invent their own procedures for solving problems. And these problems are quite demanding, both procedurally, and conceptually. Teachers, however, carefully design and orchestrate lessons so that students are likely to use procedures that have been developed recently in class. This can be called “structured problem solving."

In the U.S. the level of learning is less advanced and requires much less mathematical reasoning than in  the other two countries. Teachers present definitions of terms and demonstrate procedures for solving specific problems. Students are then asked to memorize the definitions and practice the procedures which is why it’s learning motto is  “learning terms and practicing procedures.” 

As this relates to game design, the question arises: Are game principles equal across all cultures, or do they change depending on the culture they are played in? Does varied instruction shape the minds of students to think certain ways, and therefore games need to be designed specifically for people in that culture? Will an educational game designed in America be equally effective for Japanese students?

Please feel free to share your thoughts and any links to information you may have on this topic. 

I encourage everyone to check out the videos of Jane Mcgonigal on her website entitled you found me  which can be accessed through a link under the list of interesting blogs that I follow section. She gives some very interesting talks about game design and how to apply those principles to one's everyday life.

Perhaps the most interesting comment she made was in a video delivered to the School of Life. In that video she talks about a concept called PERMA. PERMA is an acronym that stands for Positive Energy Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment. In her talk, she proposes that these emotions, which according to scientists are what people need in order to flourish, are the same emotions we feel when we play games.

An interesting thought indeed that makes sense. I wonder if she would say that a person who loses a game feels the same emotions. I also wonder if this applies just to video games, or to sports games, word games, and other types of board games as well.

I wonder how we can design games to give people these positive emotions even if they lose? Perhaps the answer is in her book entitled Reality is Broken.

Share your thoughts on whether you believe in the power of games to help kids learn. Do you feel PERMA when you play games? For educators, do you find this to be an effective instructional method? Does it matter if they win or lose?

Relating this discussion to the topic of games, according to a study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, it was discovered that a whopping 97%of American kids between ages 12 and 17 play games. (Information taken from Now You See It, by Cathy Davidson p. 145)

Here is a link to an organization called Institute of Play that works to make new forms of learning that are more engaging and game oriented.

http://www.instituteofplay.org/

As part of the discussion of understanding why technology and games can help kids learn better, I would like to share with you a very humorous, (but unfortunate) cartoon of a representation of our educational system. This post is courtesy of my friend Bryan Schuett from Minnesota.

Enjoy the picture, and thanks for sending it Bryan!

Here is a response I wrote to a question in one of my classes. The question was: What would a school based on Whitehead's ideas look, sound, and feel like? Compare that to today's system. 

In order to know how to use technology and games to help kids learn better in the 21st century, we need to understand what our current educational system is. This helps us understand how we can change the structure of schools to make them more conducive for the technological tools we now have at our disposal. I believe a system like the one described below and proposed by Whitehead would be a wonderful environment for all of our kids to learn in. 

The pupils have got to be made to feel that they are studying something, and are not merely executing intellectual minuets. (A.E. p. 15)

Knowledge does not keep any better than fish. You may he dealing with knowledge of the old species, with some old truth; but somehow or other it must come to the students, as it were, just drawn out of the sea and with the freshness of its immediate importance. (A.E. p. 147)

I am quite intrigued by many of the educational ideas of Alfred North Whitehead.

The first of those ideas that I would like to discuss are based on the above two quotes.

I feel a school based on Whitehead’s principles would be one in which all of the information that was part of the curriculum felt relevant to a student’s life.

How many times were you either the student saying or observing someone ask the teacher why we had to learn this topic? I have asked myself that question more than once throughout my college career. It might be interesting to learn about American history. It might even help me become a more well rounded and cultured person. However, if I don’t plan on being a history teacher, why do I need to learn that stuff?

I think these are the types of questions a school based on Whitehead would address. Every piece of information would seem relevant to a student’s life. In addition, each student would be able to apply what he or she has learned in a practical sense.

This is what I think he means by saying the student has to feel like he is “studying something,” and “freshness of its immediate importance.”

Applying the above examples of art and history, which I personally find a little interesting, but not necessary for my career goals, I think this is how these subjects would be taught in a Whitehead school.

For history, students would run through and experience simulations of the topics they were learning to see how those lessons could be applied nowadays. For example, a teacher who would be giving a lesson on the Constitution would tell the class that they are responsible for forming a class document that would be the basis for how all classes are run in the future. In other words, the class has to make a class Constitution. He or she would break the students up into states and ask them to come up with a voting system and other laws.

To address this above question of how this is relevant and why would someone need to know this? I believe the teacher would tie the decisions of the class to some current events piece or election news. Why are certain candidates spending more time in some states than others? If the topic of free speech came up, how does free speech affect campaigns and outcomes of elections?

Therefore, the lessons would tie in the material they are learning to current events and decisions that the students have to make and analyze. The information would seem relevant and alive. If a candidate in my district says he will support a certain piece of legislation, what impact will that have on me?

I also feel that students would really get a chance to explore and be creative in this unit. The teacher might ask the students to come in dressed as a delegate would two centuries ago. In doing so, the students are experiencing the knowledge they are learning, exploring a topic to quench their thirst for knowledge, and studying a topic that is relevant to all people of fashion. A bridge lesson of a unit on fashion might have the kids learning how to sew. The endless possibilities for off shoot lessons would be pursued in a Whitehead school. The information that is learned would be in a truly relevant, alive experience that ends in knowledge that could applied to a student’s everyday life.

I think that while schools do incorporate some of these ideas nowadays, the sense of relevancy is often lost. Creativity is used, but very often the focus is often on a test the student must take. Too often, students don’t get to enjoy the experience and journey of the knowledge because teachers get caught up in having students memorize facts that will be forgotten by the student as soon as the test is over. After all, if the facts seems random and disconnected from the person, why should he or she remember them anyway?

There are three main methods which are required in a national system of education, namely, the literary curriculum, the scientific curriculum, the technical curriculum. But each of these curricula should include the other two. What I mean is, that every form of education should give the pupil a technique, a science, an assortment of general ideas, and aesthetic appreciation, and that each of these sides of his training should be illuminated by the others. (A.E. p. 75)

Another important foundation of a Whitehead’s principles is the interrelatedness of all topics. Why do we teach English and history as two different subjects? Don’t we read texts, write reports, and think critically in both. Unlike our current system, I think many subjects like the two I just mentioned would be taught together.

Overall, a Whitehead school would be a school where a student is able to explore his many interests and passions. This is in line with his theory about the three stages of romance, precision, and wisdom (Henning). In his school, all topics would seem relevant and important to the student’s every day life. Students would experience the subjects, have a chance to quench their thirst for exploration of all the topics, and see how they are all related to one another.

A school run based Whitehead’s philosophy would be unlike the current system of education where students at times challenge the relevancy of topics and may claim they will never need to know that topic.

Sources

Cahn, S. M. (1997). Classic and Contemporary Readings in the Philosophy of Education. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill companies.

Henning, A.S. (n.d.) Dull minds, inert knowledge and undisciplined youths: A. N. Whitehead on

education. Retrieved from

http://www.philosophy-of-education.org/conferences/pdfs/Henning.pdf

Profico, M.P. (2008). The educational Theory of Alfred North Whitehead.

http://www.newfoundations.com/GALLERY/Whitehead.html

As part of my keen interest in game design, I learned about a school right here in New York City that implements a game design type of curriculum in schools.

Here is a link to that article:

Video Games Win a Beachhead in the Classroom - NYTimes.com

www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/magazine/19video-t.html?...all

By SARA CORBETT. Published: September 15, 2010. E-Mail; Print. Reprints. One morning last winter I watched a middle-school teacher named Al Doyle give a ...

Question for the crowd: What are your reactions to this article? Would you want to send your child to such a school?

Part of my interest in education and technology stems from a book I read entitled The Shallows by Nicholas Carr. His book, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize is based off an article he wrote entitled: Is Google Making us Stupid?

Here is a link to that article. I highly recommend the book too.

 http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/#.T9grT5WEbYc.email

Question for discussion: Do you think the internet is making us stupid, or simply smarter in different ways?

As one of my inspirations for this blog, I feel it is only right to give credit to Cathy Davidson who inspired me to open this blog through her wise words in the book Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn.

The link on the side is a list of other blogs from the same site.

Here is a direct link to her blog http://hastac.org/blogs/cathy-davidson

Here are some websites I have especially interesting and informative on these topics:

I have listed them on the side bar as well for quick future reference:

Cathy Davidson's organization called HASTAC where you can find a link to her blog is

http://hastac.org

Another one is about Jane Mcgonigal, who is a world famous game designer. Her website is

http://janemcgonigal.com/


Another blog I follow is from CNN called Schools of Thought. The link for this is http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/

Here is the first post of a new blog I have been wanting to start for a while. In many ways, I feel that who am I to start a blog, and who really cares what I have to say?

However, as a result of a very inspirational book I just read called Now You See It, by Cathy Davidson, I have plunged forward and opened this blog. The point and goal of this blog is to facilitate discussion about many educational ideas in general, and about game design in particular.

We are always learning, and I am by no means an authority on any of these topics at this point. However, I feel that this blog gives me the chance to share many of my thoughts which will in turn facilitate a discussion that will benefit everyone.

Enjoy and share your thoughts. As Cathy Davidson writes, we all learn from each other.