It’s the end of the week and the end of the Spring term for some UK teachers (not me!). Time to relax and look at some issues that have been floating around the news and education-related blogs in the past seven days, including using computer games for learning, some discussion on the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies, and learning through blogging…. :)

Wes Fryer is a prolific, high-quality educational blogger who discusses Messy Learning and Public Education this week:

Messy learning involves students taking initiative and working in an environment where unexpected, constructive learning events can happen– in fact, they are encouraged. Authentic, messy learning recognizes that real learning is the product of dynamical, even chaotic interactions, rather than false perceptions and constructions of linearity and predictability. When all the kids are silent, they are neatly lined up in their desks, no one is asking questions or whispering, learning is going on… but it is most likely not the sort of authentic, messy learning we should want in our classrooms and schools.

I get frustrated by the view which seems to be foisted upon teachers by the government (via Senior Leadership Teams) that students’ progress in a subject can and should be measured via National Curriculum sub-levels. This can lead to either poor or mis-directed teaching which has an undue focus on linear ’straightjacket’ learning. As Wes says, learning is a messy process – sometimes, and for a wide variety of reasons, students regress and then makes jumps and leaps in their learning. Students are humans, complicated mammals subject to emotions and physiology, not machines!

(Oh, and Wes, if you’re reading this please change the favicon on your site – I thought you were a woman until I saw a picture of you at a conference on another blog!)

One way in which a ‘messy’ approach to learning can be promoted in the classroom is through group work. A study this week, reports BBC News, has found that:

Teachers should become “guides on the side” rather than directly controlling whole classes, even if pupils argue at first, the researchers suggest…

The Spring Project (Social Pedagogic Research into Group Work) involved 162 classes and more than 4,250 children aged five to 14….

Specifically designed tests measured pupils’ attainment against pupils in classes taught using traditional teacher-directed methods. There was a “significant improvement” in those classes using the group work according to Dr Ed Baines, who led the Key Stage 2 part of the project. It was equivalent to an average pupil moving into the top third of the class, he said. And pupils involved in the project were more actively engaged in their learning and able to think through arguments surrounding the topic better than those in other classes who were more passive.

The NASUWT has attacked the study as ‘unrealistic’ and that the researchers are ‘not living in the real world’. I find this a sad state of affairs – firstly because group work skills should be developed from a very early age, and secondly as the NASUWT (my union) seem to be set on extending the age of teacher-centred learning.

There seems to be a lack of general willingness to develop the kind of constructivist learning that the use of various types of collaborative activities can promote. Problem Based Learning, as I have mentioned before, is a great way to promote higher-order thinking skills and is best done through interactive learning – either through using ICT to good effect or through group work (or both!) Teaching Hacks, the blog of Quentin D’Souza, has a post about Applying the 4 Steps of Problem Solving to Information Literacy this week in which this type of PBL is advocated. It’s worth a look if you’re looking for a structure to help your students develop their thinking (and group work) skills.

The Steps are:

Understand the Problem
* reread and restate the problem
* identify the information given and the information that needs to be determined

Make a Plan
* relate the problem to similar problems solved in the past
* consider possible strategies
* select a strategy or a combination of strategies

Carry Out the Plan
* execute the chosen strategy
* do the necessary calculations
* monitor success
* revise or apply different strategies as necessary

Look Back at the Solution
* check the reasonableness of the answer
* review the method used: Did it make sense? Is there a better way to approach the problem?
* consider extensions or variations

One radical, alternative way in which some educators are looking at promoting these skills is through the use of computer games. George Siemens links to Jane McGonigal’s The Games Studies Download: Top 10 Research Findings. Here’s the main points from the slides and handout:

• Music has a role in the success of players in games, not just an impact on their emotions.
• Players are trying to create non-standard ways to interact in games, so these forms of interaction need to be experimented with.
• There is more pleasure and excitement in active failure than in success (but passive experiences of failure make players disengage)
• Attaining a goal
• decreases player arousal and interest.

Most of the above have obvious applications in everyday teaching, but there are especially relevant to those attempting to bring new media and technologies into their classroom. Mark Wagner posts a list of quotations (for his PhD thesis) on epistemic games from Before every child is left behind: How epistemic games can solve the coming crisis in education (PDF) by Shaffer and Gee. Whilst this is evidently a polemic against current US education policy, it does raise some interesting issues:

The coming crisis is this: Young people in the United States today are being preparedâ€â€?in school and at homeâ€â€?for ‘commodity jobs’ in a world that will, very soon, only reward people who can do ‘innovative work’ and punish those who can’t. (p.1)

But the problem is that innovative work is by definition something that can not be standardized. (p.12)

Contemporary video games are profoundly engaging and motivating to young people. (p.15)

Epistemic games are about having students do things that matter in the world by immersing them in rigorous professional practices of innovation. (p.12)

Epistemic games of all kinds make it possible for students of all ages to learn by working as innovators. In playing epistemic games, students learn basic skills, to be sure. They learn the ‘facts’ and ‘content’ that we currently reward. But in epistemic games students learn facts and content in the context of innovative ways of thinking and working. They learn in a way that sticks, because they learn in the process of doing things that matter. Epistemic games thus give educators an opportunity to move beyond disciplines derived from medieval scholarship constituted within schools developed in the industrial revolutionâ€â€?a new model of learning for a digital culture and a global economy. (p.24)

To be clear: epistemic games are not necessarily games that are played strictly for pleasure – but then pleasure isn’t what makes a game a game in the first place. Pleasure is the by-product of good game design and good game play. Play is the world someone enters when he or she wants or needs to resolve in imaginary form desires that can not be immediately gratified. In play, we participate in a simulation of a world we want to inhabit, and an epistemic game is play that gives learners access to a particular form of innovative thinking. When it succeeds, it is fun, not because fun is the immediate goal, but because taking on a new set of values are an essential part of an epistemic frame, and thus of an epistemic game. (p.20)

…schools, as currently organized, make it difficult to prepare students for innovation through epistemic games. Teachers can’t spare the time from getting students ready for the next standardized test, and, not surprisingly, innovation is difficult to accomplish in 40 minute chunks of time, spread from room to room and subject to subject throughout the day… But schools could be about epistemic games rather than assessment gamesâ€â€?and solving the innovation crisis in our educational system through epistemic games would also address other crises that plague our schools: crises that have received more publicity in recent years. For example, research has shown for some time now that even students who pass typical school tests cannot actually apply their knowledge to solve problems. (p.21)

Thanks goes to Mark for sharing his research with the rest of the community. I’ve quoted from Shaffer and Gee at length as it seems to be a practical application of a theoretical tension that most educators feel – the tension between ‘real’ learning and preparing students for tests. The former can light a fire for lifelong learning whereas the latter leads to recognition for the teacher, kudos for the institution (and perhaps, these days, as a secondary consideration) a qualification for the student which allows them to progress in the adult world.

Using games to promote an enjoyment of education and ‘messy’ learning may always be a contentious issue (“They get to play computer games enough at home!”) but blogging and Web 2.0 technologies seem likely to eventually filter into most areas of education.

Christopher D. Sessums quotes a paper (PDF) by Jonathan Grudin of Microsoft:

Future generations will look back at the early 21st century as a time of information scarcity.… the increased quantity and richness of information that is available now is leading to a dramatic transformation in our stance toward the web and digital technologies through higher levels of deep engagement on many fronts…. This is not a contradiction, it suggests even more dramatic change ahead. We are on the threshhold of a broad expansion of sensor technologies, mobility, notification capabilities, and other advances that will produce a future of more plentiful information. The link between today and tomorrow is apparent in a younger generation’s adoption of text messaging, blogging, and other technologies. They are developing the skills to process and create multimedia information without effort, often multitasking, often mobile. James Martin wrote of a dam bursting in 1973. That wave swept away many habits and structures. In any era, the younger generation learns to ride any wave that comes along.

Whilst the above contains a fair amount of hyperbole, there is a point about young people adapting to situations a lot better than those of an older generation. I’m still (relatively) young – 25 – but I can see that, despite my best efforts, it’s easy to get stuck in a routine in any area of one’s life. I try to break out of those routines now and then – for example I’m typing this after getting up at 4am to watch the Australian Grand Prix – but teenagers, not having these routines so engrained, are a lot more adaptable. And it’s for this very reason that we shouldn’t be put off using technologies with which they are familiar anyway to help facilitate learning.

I’m going to leave it there – I could go on, but I’d have nothing to write about next week! :p

Stuff I didn’t have time for: