Teach Me

What Classrooms Can Learn from Video Games By Jason T. Rogers I’m not a big gamer—not by a long shot. But I’ve always found games fascinating . There’s something about how they pull people in. How they make failure feel okay. How they teach you something new without even feeling like you’re being taught. And honestly, I think classrooms have a lot to learn from that. I recently watched a short video that explains this better than I ever could. It’s called “How Game Designers Protect Newbies” by Game Maker’s Toolkit. It’s less than ten minutes, and it’s packed with insights that go way beyond gaming. Watch here → Game Maker’s Toolkit: How Game Designers Protect Newbies Confidence First, Challenge Later One of the biggest takeaways from the video is this: good games start by helping players feel confident . Not overwhelmed. Not lost. But capable. In game design, this technique is sometimes called "fue strategies" —short for fun, understanding, and engagement . The id...

Schools today have this concept called "weeding out". This is what they define as a hard class that separates the committed from the wishy washy's. I don't know how this concept got into school, It could be someones way of being lazy because they don't want to update their curriculum. These classes betray the student, create drop outs and They destroy dreams which in the end makes up all the people in all the jails worldwide and puts bombs on the street.  Colleges are not the only schools with this mentality of "Weeding out". Middle school and high school have classes that teachers will refer to them as "weeding out" classes. These classes are hard because they are poorly taught classroom settings.  Class must be as well organized and engaging as a game.  Here is a great video examples. Replace game with class and designer as teacher and we are now talking about the right type of classes. Teaching is just like designing a game. You...

Here is a video that stresses my point on how things are run and how they could be run. after you're done watching this video read my next comments. Imagine now with me a classroom that looks like this? Teachers are replaced with life coaches and Personal goal charts. Students are given a gaming ID or can use their own gaming IDs they already have from the Xbox, Wii, or other systom. They are allowed to come in and play at any time and are only chards $50 a month or $3 per day or they can sign up for a sponsor. They can play whatever they want. When they are ready to get serious with their education they come to a life coach and say something like "I'm done just playing these games for fun I want to go into engineering" The coach and student sit down together and look over what he or she has played already. The Coach share what the student still needs to learn and gives him an option and a list of games that teach that skill.  In every game th...