I have been reading some very interesting ideas by James Paul Gee this week. He is very clear about the fact that he believes that most designers designing educational products do not know what they are doing. He says that what makes a game or anything else "interactive", is that the "interactive world" must be partially created by the player/learner through his or her own actions and decisions. Sounds like Constructivism. Also, he thinks that people are too hung up about learning “content” in the sense of facts. What we need people to be learning is how to think deeply about complex systems (modern workplaces, the environment, international relations, social interactions, cultures, etc.) where everything interacts in complicated ways with everything else, where bad decisions can turn into disasters. Games or other well designed interactive products - not as stand-alone learning tools—but as part of a whole learning curriculum - will eventually be crucial to this. These ideas are tailor made for products designed out of a Constructivist paradigm.
He suggests that we need to do away with the discrimination between formal and informal learning. That people (digital natives) are now living in multiple worlds, leading multiple lives, learning in many non-traditional, but powerful, informal ways. It is time for informal learning, for really the first time, to come to school and be intertwined with formal learning.
One last thing dealing with James Paul Gee. In his book, In What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy, Gee talks about a learning cycle being evident in gaming that ought to be celebrated in formal educational settings: prope, hypothesize, reprobe, rethink. Despite its processual regularity, this sequence, according to Gee can be found across video gaming and science education.
Gee states, "Games, of course, reflect the culture we live in--a culture we can change." Constructivist idea? I think so. He claims, rightfully so, that playing games or designing games is a culture-changing force.
He says that games use one or more modalities (ie. oral and written language, images, equations, symbols, sounds, gestures, graphs, artifacts, etc.)." And this is what is needed in a 21st century educational paradigm.
I believe him. Three of the things that Constructivism calls for, and that are involved in active learning are: experiencing the world in new ways, forming new affiliations, and preparing for future learning." All of which are fundamental to the play of video games, or so argues James Paul Gee.
Here is Clay Shirky at Web Expo 2.0, 2008 talking about collaboration and the social shift it brings with it.
According to Clay Shirky, there are four scaffolded stages to mastering the connected world: sharing, cooperating, collaborating, and collective action.
These relate very directly to what we have been talking about concerning Constructivism. In trying to design my Instructional Project from a Constuctivist approach, I want to include these ideas and approaches in my product if possible.
Here is a list of some of the things that James Paul Gee and Clay Shirky argue should be included in a 21st Century learning paradigm that I want to include in my product:
It is never just about content. Learners are trying to get better at something.
It is never just routine. It requires thinking with what you know and pushing further.
It is never just problem solving. It also involves problem finding.
It’s not just about right answers. It involves explanation and justification.
It is not emotionally flat. It involves curiosity, discovery, creativity, and community.
It’s not in a vacuum. It involves methods, purposes, and forms of one of more disciplines, situated in a social context.
In trying to get my head around these things I decided to try and map out a comparison between traditional learning approaches and Constructivist learning approaches, I came up with this matrix:
I have identified a few design goals that I have for my Instructional product as a result of this weeks investigations.
Design Goals:
Provide access to rich sources of information using a variety of media.
Encourage meaningful interactions with the content.
Bring people together to challenge, support and/or respond to each other.
Facilitate Active Learning where the learner(s) consciously engage in meaningful activities that can be shared with others.
Discovery learning where learners discover facts and relationships for themselves.
Students will work in groups.
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