Good Teaching vs. Good Educational Games:

Is There Really Much of a Difference?

Michael A. Britt, Ph.D.The Psych Files podcastwww.ThePsychFiles.com

What Do Good Teachers Do?

Really Good Teachers...• have goals for their lessons• draw on on “Motivation to Learn” strategies which engage

students through the use of puzzles, questions, mysteries, apparent conflicts

• provide immediate feedback to students on how they’re doing

• help students summarize what they’ve learned• help students reflect on their experience• help students draw on prior knowledge• encourage students to use metacognitive strategies (“Did I

understand what I just heard/read?”)

What Do Good Teachers Do?

• Really good teachers (continued)…– provide students with appropriate challenge to

optimize the potential for a feeling of “flow” as they learn

– provide a context for the material to be learned (i.e., students know in what situations their learning would be useful)

– encourage active exploration among students (not entirely focused on right and wrong answers)

– provide students with opportunities for safe practice

What Do Really Good Games Do?

• Really good games…– have win states to give us a feeling of accomplishment

– employ conflict/competition/challenge to up our adrenaline

– use dramatic problems– use otherworldly stories and characters to stir the

emotions– require problem solving– encourage interaction to solve challenges– are unpredictable– provide a sense of urgency

What Do Really Good Games Do?

• Really good games (continued)…– have rules to give play structure and help put us inside the

game world– have goals to provide motivation and let us measure

ourselves against something– are interactive to keep us doing things– are situated in an interesting place or time– have outcomes and immediate feedback from which we

learn– adapt their difficulty to our skills to keep us in flow– are “hard fun”

Critiques of (and responses to) Educational Games

• Critique 1: The situation/context/story the game takes place in is unrealistic.

– Response: this is true, but what are the main goals of any learning experience: a) to understand, and b) to be able to apply. If a game accomplishes these goals, who cares if the setting is unrealistic? Students know the situation is unrealistic, and we can certainly add in a component that gives them an understanding of the real-world nature of the task.

Critiques of (and responses to) Educational Games

• Critique 2: Using games is giving in. Why can’t students just learn the old fashioned way?

– Response 1: Ultimately, people learn best when they work on activities that are tied to achieving their personal goals (“I need to do X”). In school, we can’t give them this, but we can engage them through stories and games. Why not use these tools?

– Response 2: Look, let’s face it: the world has changed. The old fashioned ways don’t work as well any more.

– Response 3: Why shouldn’t learning be fun? It starts out that way in childhood - why does it have to become “work”?

Resources on Educational Gaming

• Aldrich, C. (2004). Simulations and the Future of Learning: An Innovative (and Perhaps Revolutionary) Approach to e-Learning. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.Aldrich, C. (2005).

• Brophy, J. (1983). Conceptualizing Student Motivation. Educational Psychologist, 18, 200-215.Brophy, J. (1998). Motivating Students to Learn. Boston: McGraw-Hill.Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989).

• Perceiving Value in Obligations and Goals: Wanting to do What Should be Done. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 982-995.

• Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, 18 (1), 32-41.Bransford, J.D. et al. (1990).

• Anchored instruction: Why we need it and how technology can help. In D. Nix & R. Spiro (Eds), Cognition, education and multimedia. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum Associates.Bruning, R. & Horn, C. (2000).

• Foreman, J. (2003). Developing the Motivation to Write. Educational Psychologist, 35, 25-37.

• Educational Technology Versus the Lecture. EduCause Review.Glasser, A. (2004). Interactive Storytelling. AK Peters, Ltd.Oblinger, D.G. (2004).

• The Next Generation of Educational Engagement. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2004 (8).

• Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Game-Based Learning. McGraw-Hill, Inc.Quinn, C. N. (2005). Engaging Learning. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.