Undergraduate Videogame Symposium<\/a> was reacting to the announcement that faculty teams, including Nancy and me, would be playing\u2014or attempting to play\u2014\u201cSurgery Simulator\u201d in front of the crowd. (Perform a heart transplant while learning how to pick up and manipulate instruments through a keyboard!)<\/p>\nStudents working with Barron\u2019s Interdisciplinary Writing Program had organized a day of presentations, narrated play, guest speakers, and insightful analyses of the learning environments and experiences provided by gaming. The day was an excellent, if awkwardly hands-on, sequel to Friday afternoon\u2019s President\u2019s Technology Initiative Expo, where faculty presented how they have redesigned and transformed courses through technology.<\/p>\n
Both events illustrated that digital environments, whether in a game or in a blended or \u201cflipped\u201d course, move much of the opportunity (or responsibility) for learning to the student.\u00a0 Exploration, assessing and interpreting contextual clues, and repeated trial-and-error all facilitate \u201cdeliberate learning\u201d in a more active, often more individualized fashion than simple classroom presentations.<\/p>\n
Some exciting course redesigns funded by the President\u2019s Technology Initiative have enabled significant change in pedagogy and types of learning. We saw a lab course with more hands-on content than the original demonstration-based approach; a redesigned course in which the instructor and teaching assistants engage individuals and small groups; and a lecture course restructured to apply \u201cWordle\u201d to student pre-class online postings to identify topics that students most need to have more discussion of in class. And there were examples showing a great increase in the number of students that can be accommodated, counteracting space limitations.<\/p>\n
Students in the videogame symposium provided insightful descriptions of the analytical, experimental and interpretative skills that can be gained. It is clear that the same young adults who frequently fail to do pre-class reading or preparation are willing to spend enormous effort trying new, creative and independent approaches to master something in a game environment. (As one speaker commented, \u201cGrand Theft Auto\u201d is NOT about learning to follow instructions.)<\/p>\n
What might we learn from games and gamers that would help us prepare our students\u2014some of whom are not necessarily tech-savvy\u2014for the technology-enabled educational experience? It is not an attempt to \u201cgamify\u201d (e.g., substituting badges or leveling up for grading) but the need to draw upon possible insights into cognition, learning and motivation. We\u2019ll be encouraging further investigation of this\u2014just as soon as I get through the next phase of \u201cJourney\u201d on the PlayStation \u2026 .<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 by Laura Huenneke, Provost When the student next to me dropped head into hands, groaning, I knew Nancy Barron and I were in trouble. The student-dominated audience at last Saturday\u2019s Undergraduate Videogame Symposium was reacting to the announcement that faculty teams, including Nancy and me, would be playing\u2014or attempting to…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":25691,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[743,70,742,38,24,136],"class_list":["post-29882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-views-from-nau","tag-blended-learning","tag-laura-huenneke","tag-nancy-barron","tag-nau","tag-northern-arizona-university","tag-presidents-technology-initiative"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}