Playing to learn math?
March 4th, 2010
This presentation, built yesterday, is my philosophical argument for why we should be actively pursuing games as a way to teach algebra. In fact, you’ll find that many of the definitions of games and game design principles sound like they are describing algebra. Of course, the presentation misses something without my accompanying talk, but it has enough to get you started thinking about where we could be going with math education.
It took me 12 hours just to build the presentation you see below … and collaboration with my assistant and an illustrator. I’ve been obsessively reading and thinking about this topic for about two years.
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Great work! It definitely pulled some thoughts and questions out of me that I should be writing about more in the future.
One thing I’ll toss into the mix right now:
In “How children learn”, there’s one ingredient that’s conspicuously absent: watching. My 1.5-yr-old is constantly surprising me by doing things I wasn’t trying to teach him, but which he’s seen me doing repeatedly and decided he can figure out now.
I think there’s stuff there worth digging deeper into than simply saying “oh they should watch how I solve this problem”. How often do students watch a math teacher (or mathematician) engaged in a genuinely challenging math inquiry of their own?
Btw, have you read “Rules of Play” in your research on games and learning? It’s a very academic-minded textbook on game design; great if you’re a theory junkie like me, and very helpful (in my mind) at seeing how topics and themes in both game design and education can overlap.
Yup … I have Rules of Play and have read some (not all) of it. Have you read “A Theory of Fun”?
When your daughter watches, the very next thing she does is TRY … right?
The research indicates that students learn well through games, but I feel enourmous pressure to “cover” all of the standards that will be on the state test.
Fortunately, there’s not that same concern playing games with my own kids!
And the odiogo.com feed is very cool! First time I’ve seen it.
Ahhh … what we NEED is for the game to actually “cover” some of the material outside of class and free us up to do more real-world math and project-based math in class … if only someone were working on that …
I just embedded your excellent presentation into a post on my blog which was inspired by your presentation Thinking UDL. I work with younger students but the same ideas apply. Thanks for getting me thinking!!
Thank you for your presentation. I definitely feel that learning and technology should embrace one another. It is a sign of the times that algebra can be taught through the forum of the video game. Although nothing can ever take the place of the human element that is so important to the learning process, the potential these games have for teaching is incredible and should not be underestimated. Kids are highly responsive to learning through channels that really engage them. Using games designed to do this just means the future has arrived.