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By Raj, May 27, 2008 9:21 am

I came across this in my email clean out this morning – looks useful, I might just have to mine it as a resource for some of my own materials.

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By Raj, April 30, 2008 2:21 pm

This is an interesting paper on fluid intelligence and it fits nicely with the last post I had in my Cognitive Stuff tag. Susanne Jaeggi from the University of Michigan designed a test and found (among other things) that the task that: 

… this task worked where others have failed because it remained challenging. The students were never allowed to get comfortable with the task – as soon as they improved, it became accordingly more difficult. Faced with the combination of two info streams and shifting difficulty levels, they couldn’t develop simple strategies or switch to autopilot. The task was also very challenging. To succeed in it, students had to remember old items, constantly update the memories they were keeping, block out irrelevant ones, and manage two tasks at the same time using both sound and sight.

This certainly provides some good proof as to why continual and incremental challenge in a novel environment is good for learning. Games are obviously very good at being able to provide these environments,  but there is nothing stopping any classroom from providing the same type of challenge. 

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By Raj, April 11, 2008 7:20 pm

Risk, reward and repetition are the three Rs for any behaviour that one would want to try to establish – good or bad. When it comes to teaching and learning, instructors often have risks that are too great, rewards that are not relevant and repetition that is so far beyond what is needed, or not present at all – according to the students. Now that is not always the case, but it is unlikely, that in post secondary especially, that instructors will think about these three Rs at all when they are designing or delivering a course. But should they? I think they should, especially the repetition. Students should be able to fail (safely) at least once. Afterall, that is what the real world is like… absolute perfection is not the normal state of affairs for anything.

These ideas were brought up by a couple of posts. The first was via Allison Miller, talking about NCVER report “Having your say: ‪Views from the sector on enhancing vocational education and training provider capability and the second from Tom Kuhlmann on Lego, Slots and Video Games where he basically outlined with really cool images everything that I believe as well about risk in the classroom.

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By Raj, November 2, 2007 1:12 pm

Escapist has a list of the “10 myths about serious games” and for the most part, I found nothing really new there, except for one comment…

Serious games that act more like utilities

Games are a teaching utility?? Wha?

I would argue that just about anything that one would use to teach a lesson is almost always a utility. There is a main theme that the lesson is about, but there are many other smaller lessons that you are experiencing along the way (take a look at this THE article about designing games). Especially if you are a fan of constructivism. If this is the case, while learning about force vectors in a game, you might also be learning about the history of cars or weapons. In an example from Escapist, Japanese dating… I haven’t played the game, but I can only imagine that there is some additional elements included beyond explaining the logistical and mechanical elements of Japanese relationships.

Some people call this the “head game” or hidden curriculum, but regardless of what you call it, it is almost always there. Why should games be any different?

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By Raj, August 15, 2007 9:43 am

OLDaily is almost always a treasure trove of good bits to add to one’s own personal knowledge set – I wonder how Stephen finds the time to write all that he does every day. But this post hit me today because I’ve been trying to get people in the faculty to understand that we are a learning and professional development unit that uses technology as the means of delivery if all other factors are equal, or if it’s a “best fit”. Technology is a moving target and has been the boon and bust in the field of education, but the basics of good teaching are established and I can’t do much of anything with an instructor who can’t get a word out of their mouth in a lecture if that is the only format that they are able to present in (yes, there are people like that). If they are willing to try other modes of delivery, then we can explore technology as a means of extending what abilities that they have. So with that in mind…

It’s easy to focus on the technology, but what’s important comes before the technology:

• the learners choose their own technology – whether blogs, discussion boards, audio feeds, or whatever – and the mix of synchronous and asynchronous interaction is up to each individual (nobody is required to join some group from a chat, nor are they excluded from being able to join some group for a chat)
• the content is not imposed on them, but is rather self-selected, which means that it is available on an as-needed basis (hence the popularity of Google search) and also as a feed or a stream (hence the popularity of RSS and blogs, as well as podcasting)

These are the things that I think are essential.

…
In a university environment, I fear, the best that can be done is to mitigate the disadvantages. Basically, what this means is throwing a lot of stuff out there and letting people craft their own course out of it.
…paraphrased/hacked list follows from here…

• Audio lectures are great for people who have commutes or exercise routines.
• I think online synchronous chat sessions are worthwhile. These should be less like lectures and more like talk radio. MP3 audio recordings should be available.
• I think a course blog – or something that provides a focal point for resources, discussion, etc. – is essential.
• there should be a content area for the course. How this is set up can vary widely – it could just be a set of links from the blog posts, it could be a wiki co-authored and organized by the students, it could be a common set of del.icio.us tags – I would discuss this with students and try to find out what would work best for them.
• there should be some sort of course community. I wouldn’t require that students join some sort of social network like Facebook – students should be free to make (or not make) their own social connections.

The post then finishes with a bit of advice to try to create the design of the course in an almost organic nature – molding it to fit the needs as they arise. In my mind, preplanning a course is “old skool” and will likely cause much more stress than “running along”. In the end, the same amount of time will be spent dealing with the prep of the course either way, but the “just in time” will likely produce better results. OLD suggests thinking of the course as streaming content, I’m more apt to think about the course as prepping to cook a meal. A good chef has a range of components prepped and ready to go to match what the pallet of the patron desires.