While perusing Twitter last week, I saw references to the Quest Based Learning Virtual Unconference (http://www.questboise.com/). I was intrigued, by the postings, and by the fact that Lee Sheldon, who wrote the book on gamification that I am currently working through, as well as Kae Novak and Chris Luchs, whose workshops had in the past convinced me that trying gaming in my classes might be a good idea, were presenting. Although all of the sessions are recorded, I so far have been able to view one live session, by Chris Haskell on online gaming and RPG's.
Among other things, Dr. Haskell discussed the importance of avatars in gaming. It is something that Lee Sheldon also discusses, but I had rejected the idea because I really didn't want to have an election between zombies, magical creatures, and superheroes, but on further thought it may be a fruitful idea. It would be great to start out the class by having each student draft a biography of their ideal candidate. Then the students could write about the assumptions they are using and what those assumptions tell us about American political culture. Then they could use each other as focus groups to test those assumptions, which would lead to a discussion of public opinion.
Now do I let them chose any type of candidate they want? Part of me says yes. After all magical creatures would be constitutionally barred from running for office. Superman might be a good candidate, but there are some flaws. First, he would have to run as Clark Kent and keep his real identity secret. Clark would not be a particularly good candidates given the lack of popularity of the press. It would be hard to get people to vote for a reporter, even a mild-mannered one. Second, as Robert Slayton has noted, Superman is an undocumented immigrant. That alone would make him virtually unelectable. As to zombies, there is a great discussion to be had regarding whether the undead qualify as citizens under the constitution. That discussion would better be held on an episode of The Big Bang Theory. Better to stick to realistic candidates.
This rbings up to another element of the game- opposition research. They could identify weaknesses in candidates and start to address those. We could find articles about the effectiveness of negative campaigning, and the rules could be structure to allow money to be spent on positive ads, which would have no effect on any opponent, but would win you votes, or negative ads, which would have you lose a relatively small amount of votes, but have your target lose a greater amount of votes. This would help students understand the strategy behind negative campaigning.
What I like about the idea of creating candidates is that the material is growing organically from the game, so I won't be following the typical order fro an American Government course, which is generally mirrored by the structure of text books. If I continue to do that I will have to teach the material as it relates to relevant concerns rather than awkwardly fitting it into the game. This creates a huge challenge for me, but it is doable. Once the candidates are identified, we can talk about the party ideologies by starting with theories of democracy, continuing with a discussion of the Constitution, and then concluding with a discussion of political ideology. So by learning about these topics, the students would be building their platforms. The game is starting to unfold.
One more thing. I had been concerned about the small class and the fact that the game isn't yet fully designed, but this may be an advantage. This semester could be considered as a beta test of the game, and the students can help develop it. I had been hesitant to go that way, since a new methodology can already bring about nervousness and uncertainty, but having the students co-participate can make the class more engaging, as well as compensate for the fact that adjustments will inevitably be made. The models that I have seen have all involved a rather shaky first semester as the game is being tested and perfected. Maybe it's better to be upfront about the process-- as long as the grading scheme is solid the students should be appreciative.
Sunday, August 3, 2014
Thursday, July 24, 2014
The Game
Okay, it's time to get serious. It's a week until we hit August, and the class starts on August 19. Also, concerning is the fact that the class enrollment right now sits at a grand total of seven. I'm used to having classes in the high twenties or low thirties. To make this work, I would ideally like at least sixteen to twenty students, although I could make it work with as little as twelve. We'll see...
I'd also like to plug a book that I have been reading. This one is more practical that Jane McGonigal's in the sense that the author discusses his own work with using gaming in the classroom. The book is Lee Sheldon's The Multiplayer Classroom. Although he teaches gaming, which lends itself to gamifying the class more easily, he still has a lot of ideas an experiences to share.
For my class, since it is an American Government class, I am going to design a game around an election. The players will be divided into parties, and in the first phase the players will compete to represent their party in the general election. Ideally, I would like at least four in each party to allow for bargaining and alliance building. In the second phase, the nominee of each party (now with the help of their former rivals) will compete to win the general election. Again, I would ideally like three or more parties to allow for bargaining. I would also like to develop roles for the party members so that they can all participate in some way, as well as having something for the nominee to bargain with.
Players will be able to earn votes, as well as campaign contributions and volunteers, which would be converted into votes. To get votes, I am tentatively thinking of quizzes on each week's material. I am thinking at this point to allow them to take multiple quizzes to improve their votes, just as games allow multiple attempts at a level. Thus, competency would be the goal with multiple chances to establish competency. This may be a little labor intensive to pull off, but it should at least be a goal.
Another way players can earn votes is by converting contributions. I'm hoping to figure out a way that they can covert them that's fun and not straight buying of votes, but we'll see. I'm thinking that the contributions could be earned by a performance in a debate.
Finally, volunteers could be used as part of a Get Out the Vote effort. This will teach the students that having votes is not enough, but the voters need to get to the polls. I originally thought that this could be tied to attendance, but I got a better idea from a presenter at a recent Sloan conference. The students would be given an assessment at the beginning of each class which asks them to critically reflect on the week's material. They would get full points (volunteers) for a well supported answer, half points for an answer that is not sufficiently supported, and no points for not being their to take the assessment. The percentage of volunteers that they earn compared to the total would equla the percentage of their vote that turns out. This is equivalent to "experience points" that are earned in many games.
This is not perfectly fleshed out yet. I would also like to have some kind of written assignment to factor in as well, so we'll see how that goes. The next phase is to divide the material into units that will constitute the discrete stages of the game.
I'd also like to plug a book that I have been reading. This one is more practical that Jane McGonigal's in the sense that the author discusses his own work with using gaming in the classroom. The book is Lee Sheldon's The Multiplayer Classroom. Although he teaches gaming, which lends itself to gamifying the class more easily, he still has a lot of ideas an experiences to share.
For my class, since it is an American Government class, I am going to design a game around an election. The players will be divided into parties, and in the first phase the players will compete to represent their party in the general election. Ideally, I would like at least four in each party to allow for bargaining and alliance building. In the second phase, the nominee of each party (now with the help of their former rivals) will compete to win the general election. Again, I would ideally like three or more parties to allow for bargaining. I would also like to develop roles for the party members so that they can all participate in some way, as well as having something for the nominee to bargain with.
Players will be able to earn votes, as well as campaign contributions and volunteers, which would be converted into votes. To get votes, I am tentatively thinking of quizzes on each week's material. I am thinking at this point to allow them to take multiple quizzes to improve their votes, just as games allow multiple attempts at a level. Thus, competency would be the goal with multiple chances to establish competency. This may be a little labor intensive to pull off, but it should at least be a goal.
Another way players can earn votes is by converting contributions. I'm hoping to figure out a way that they can covert them that's fun and not straight buying of votes, but we'll see. I'm thinking that the contributions could be earned by a performance in a debate.
Finally, volunteers could be used as part of a Get Out the Vote effort. This will teach the students that having votes is not enough, but the voters need to get to the polls. I originally thought that this could be tied to attendance, but I got a better idea from a presenter at a recent Sloan conference. The students would be given an assessment at the beginning of each class which asks them to critically reflect on the week's material. They would get full points (volunteers) for a well supported answer, half points for an answer that is not sufficiently supported, and no points for not being their to take the assessment. The percentage of volunteers that they earn compared to the total would equla the percentage of their vote that turns out. This is equivalent to "experience points" that are earned in many games.
This is not perfectly fleshed out yet. I would also like to have some kind of written assignment to factor in as well, so we'll see how that goes. The next phase is to divide the material into units that will constitute the discrete stages of the game.
Sunday, July 13, 2014
Aw Mommmm!
I got a lot of very nice comments on my last post, but one of the most interesting ones came from my mother. In know what you are thinking. Isn't it nice that Mike's mom put down her knitting long enough to read her son's blog. Not quite. My mother is a former teacher and teacher educator, and the closest think to knitting anywhere around her is her golf club cover. In the past she had many times counseled me to use more active learning in my courses. Typical mom: eat your vegetables, floss your teeth and don't forget to put your students into small groups instead of lecturing all the time.
Her comment, via social media, was that she had used games in her elementary school classroom many years ago. This brings up two important points. First, games are generally associated with children. This could cause a backlash by students who think that games mean that I am not taking the class, or them, seriously enough. That concerns me a lot. I am told both by friends who have used games and by people who write on the subject that there may be some initial resistance, but that eventually people come around. I'm hoping that it provides an opportunity to add academic rigor to the course.
The second point is that using games to learn is really not anything new. Of course we all remember the games we played both inside and outside of school that taught us so many lessons. With all respect to my former teacher, Sheila Tobias, I am convinced that baseball is one of the reasons boys have traditionally been better at mathematics than girls. In addition, I remember a friend in college who had a business class in which the students were divided into groups to put together fake corporations for which they wrote business plans. And of course we know that the military uses war games, and what could be more serious than that?
What seems to be new is the computer gaming industry and its popularity. Now I am adamantly not a gamer. I barely played pong when I was younger, and all of the talk of World of Warcraft initially turned me off to the whole idea of gamin in education. When I wanted to find out what WOW was all about, I almost destroyed my computer trying to download a demo version.
As it turns out though, I finally had an "aha" moment in which I realized that I am a gamer of sorts. Once source refers to people like me as"casual gamers." I do play Words with Friends and lose with great consistency. I also play a game on Facebook called Criminal Case, which I had kept as a dark secret, taking pains to ensure that none of my friends gets those annoying messages that I have uncovered a new crime scene or advanced a new level.
I like Criminal Case because because it involves a lot of hidden object games, which are fun to play. They involve a lot of trial and error-- the more you play, the better you get. Sometimes I purposely play a bad round so that I can learn where the harder to find objects are for the next time.
In addition, it involves getting some help from other players, and there is a bit of a social component. Some of the other players include my mother, my two sisters, and two of my nieces. The game provides a way that I can casually stay in touch with family members, even if it only through playing the game. Jane McGonigal discusses the importance of this social aspect of game playing.
Finally, there are multiple kinds of rewards I can get. I need energy to solve the puzzles. I can get that energy by using food, whcih I can also get in various ways. There are also cards I can collect to exchange for food (that converts into energy).
It hit me that I could do the same thing with a game in an American Government class. The goal would be to win an election by getting votes. In addition, players could win volunteers by doing some kind of exercise that is based on attending and donations which would be tied to performance in a debate. These would all translate ultimately into votes. I can flesh this out a bit more next time. If I can find a way to incorporate the trial and error learning and the social aspect, I will be in great shape.
I would like to also thank all of you who read my first blog posting. I have tried blogging before and never really gotten off of the ground. I felt really proud of myself until I looked at the posting that had the greatest number of hits. Here it is: http://regiscoste.blogspot.com/. Maybe I need to work a little on follow through.
Her comment, via social media, was that she had used games in her elementary school classroom many years ago. This brings up two important points. First, games are generally associated with children. This could cause a backlash by students who think that games mean that I am not taking the class, or them, seriously enough. That concerns me a lot. I am told both by friends who have used games and by people who write on the subject that there may be some initial resistance, but that eventually people come around. I'm hoping that it provides an opportunity to add academic rigor to the course.
The second point is that using games to learn is really not anything new. Of course we all remember the games we played both inside and outside of school that taught us so many lessons. With all respect to my former teacher, Sheila Tobias, I am convinced that baseball is one of the reasons boys have traditionally been better at mathematics than girls. In addition, I remember a friend in college who had a business class in which the students were divided into groups to put together fake corporations for which they wrote business plans. And of course we know that the military uses war games, and what could be more serious than that?
What seems to be new is the computer gaming industry and its popularity. Now I am adamantly not a gamer. I barely played pong when I was younger, and all of the talk of World of Warcraft initially turned me off to the whole idea of gamin in education. When I wanted to find out what WOW was all about, I almost destroyed my computer trying to download a demo version.
As it turns out though, I finally had an "aha" moment in which I realized that I am a gamer of sorts. Once source refers to people like me as"casual gamers." I do play Words with Friends and lose with great consistency. I also play a game on Facebook called Criminal Case, which I had kept as a dark secret, taking pains to ensure that none of my friends gets those annoying messages that I have uncovered a new crime scene or advanced a new level.
I like Criminal Case because because it involves a lot of hidden object games, which are fun to play. They involve a lot of trial and error-- the more you play, the better you get. Sometimes I purposely play a bad round so that I can learn where the harder to find objects are for the next time.
In addition, it involves getting some help from other players, and there is a bit of a social component. Some of the other players include my mother, my two sisters, and two of my nieces. The game provides a way that I can casually stay in touch with family members, even if it only through playing the game. Jane McGonigal discusses the importance of this social aspect of game playing.
Finally, there are multiple kinds of rewards I can get. I need energy to solve the puzzles. I can get that energy by using food, whcih I can also get in various ways. There are also cards I can collect to exchange for food (that converts into energy).
It hit me that I could do the same thing with a game in an American Government class. The goal would be to win an election by getting votes. In addition, players could win volunteers by doing some kind of exercise that is based on attending and donations which would be tied to performance in a debate. These would all translate ultimately into votes. I can flesh this out a bit more next time. If I can find a way to incorporate the trial and error learning and the social aspect, I will be in great shape.
I would like to also thank all of you who read my first blog posting. I have tried blogging before and never really gotten off of the ground. I felt really proud of myself until I looked at the posting that had the greatest number of hits. Here it is: http://regiscoste.blogspot.com/. Maybe I need to work a little on follow through.
Sunday, July 6, 2014
Why, Oh Why?
So as I write, I have just finished my first year as a dean after spending 24 years teaching at a different community college. I didn't teach at the community college this year because I was given advice to not teach during my first year as a dean. It was good advice, because I really needed to reinvent myself as an administrator rather than a teacher playing at administration. However, I found that I need to teach so that I can feel more grounded in my new college-- and I just missed it.
But, I had one small issue. I mainly taught Philosophy and Humanities courses, and both of those are areas I supervise. It would be a bit awkward to go to someone who essentially reports to me and say, "If you have an open classes, and you think I would be qualified, I would love to teach one." No pressure there, right?
The one area that I have taught in that wasn't under my supervision was Political Science. I approached the issue carefully, starting with the dean and then going to the lead, and it turned out there was an opening for an American Government class.
Now it had been a while since I had taught American Government, and I was actually quite excited. I started perusing the journals and catching up on the field, which has been both interesting and exciting. And it turns out, that not much has changed since I last taught the course in earnest twenty years or so ago. There was a President Bush who had been involved in a war with Iraq, a strong contender for the presidency named Clinton, Jerry Brown was the governor of California, and Russia had troops in the Crimean Peninsula. Still, it was clear that my old notes would not suffice and that I would have to design the course anew, as if I had never taught it before.
In looking at the course, I started to think about flipping the classroom. That was something I had been experimenting with when I was teaching, and I was eager to continue with that experiment. My plan was to teach the course the traditional way and then flip it the following semester. I realized that it would be better to just design the course already flipped (leading me to recognize a weakness in the whole "flipped classroom" paradigm).
The gaming part came in a more roundabout way. I had been attending a technology conference at my former college for many years, and had gone to sessions on gaming in the classroom. There was a lot of talk about multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft, which I couldn't really relate to as not much of a gamer myself. My working hypothesis was that it was a great excuse for people to play games under the guise of doing research on pedagogy, but I still persisted in attending those sessions because I felt like I was missing something.
Then I had a colleague who designed her Humanities class to be a game. It really engaged the students, but it was quite frightening in the the rules were being developed as the game went on, and the game was in constant danger of spinning completely out of control. She ended up refining the idea into a very successful course, but it was an incredibly brave move, perhaps the bravest thing I have ever seen an instructor do.
What finally pulled things together for was a happy coincidence. A current colleague of mine was being interviewed by Jane McGonigal for her next book, which reminded me that I had long been meaning to read her last book, Reality is Broken. This book is a very well written account of how gaming can be applied to a number of situations. I started to see that it was less about using technology and computers and more abut understanding what it is about games that engages and inspires people.
My "aha" moment came when I started to think about how politics is a game (thanks to partly to the Netflix series, House of Cards). Candidates vie for support that ultimately leads to votes, but also involves raising money and rallying support among volunteers. A simulated election may well be the type of game that my course needed. Now that I have the loose concept, it is time to flesh the idea out.
I move forward here not without quite a bit of trepidation. I used to joke that it was easy for me to take a risk because, after so many years, I was due for a big screw up. But I truly could afford to have a class not work because I had a long history against which any mistakes could be measured. Now I am in a relatively new position, and I risk being the dean who got to gimmicky and messed up his class as a result, someone who can talk a big game but can't make it happen, a cautionary tale against trying too hard to adopt the flavor of the day. Well if that's the case, I guess the cautionary tale will be well documented.
But, I had one small issue. I mainly taught Philosophy and Humanities courses, and both of those are areas I supervise. It would be a bit awkward to go to someone who essentially reports to me and say, "If you have an open classes, and you think I would be qualified, I would love to teach one." No pressure there, right?
The one area that I have taught in that wasn't under my supervision was Political Science. I approached the issue carefully, starting with the dean and then going to the lead, and it turned out there was an opening for an American Government class.
Now it had been a while since I had taught American Government, and I was actually quite excited. I started perusing the journals and catching up on the field, which has been both interesting and exciting. And it turns out, that not much has changed since I last taught the course in earnest twenty years or so ago. There was a President Bush who had been involved in a war with Iraq, a strong contender for the presidency named Clinton, Jerry Brown was the governor of California, and Russia had troops in the Crimean Peninsula. Still, it was clear that my old notes would not suffice and that I would have to design the course anew, as if I had never taught it before.
In looking at the course, I started to think about flipping the classroom. That was something I had been experimenting with when I was teaching, and I was eager to continue with that experiment. My plan was to teach the course the traditional way and then flip it the following semester. I realized that it would be better to just design the course already flipped (leading me to recognize a weakness in the whole "flipped classroom" paradigm).
The gaming part came in a more roundabout way. I had been attending a technology conference at my former college for many years, and had gone to sessions on gaming in the classroom. There was a lot of talk about multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft, which I couldn't really relate to as not much of a gamer myself. My working hypothesis was that it was a great excuse for people to play games under the guise of doing research on pedagogy, but I still persisted in attending those sessions because I felt like I was missing something.
Then I had a colleague who designed her Humanities class to be a game. It really engaged the students, but it was quite frightening in the the rules were being developed as the game went on, and the game was in constant danger of spinning completely out of control. She ended up refining the idea into a very successful course, but it was an incredibly brave move, perhaps the bravest thing I have ever seen an instructor do.
What finally pulled things together for was a happy coincidence. A current colleague of mine was being interviewed by Jane McGonigal for her next book, which reminded me that I had long been meaning to read her last book, Reality is Broken. This book is a very well written account of how gaming can be applied to a number of situations. I started to see that it was less about using technology and computers and more abut understanding what it is about games that engages and inspires people.
My "aha" moment came when I started to think about how politics is a game (thanks to partly to the Netflix series, House of Cards). Candidates vie for support that ultimately leads to votes, but also involves raising money and rallying support among volunteers. A simulated election may well be the type of game that my course needed. Now that I have the loose concept, it is time to flesh the idea out.
I move forward here not without quite a bit of trepidation. I used to joke that it was easy for me to take a risk because, after so many years, I was due for a big screw up. But I truly could afford to have a class not work because I had a long history against which any mistakes could be measured. Now I am in a relatively new position, and I risk being the dean who got to gimmicky and messed up his class as a result, someone who can talk a big game but can't make it happen, a cautionary tale against trying too hard to adopt the flavor of the day. Well if that's the case, I guess the cautionary tale will be well documented.
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