today was the first day of our study trip to America.
i was tasked to be the note-taker for the first half of the day, so here are my preliminary notes :-)
we visited Katie Salen and Robert Torres at the Institute of Play.
we began by being given the context that large high schools in the New York districts were re-organised and re-constituted since 2003 as approximately 150 smaller schools, operating independently of each other, but within the respective original sites and infrastructure. in some cases, these sites had been so large that they were able to support five or six smaller schools within them.
on our part, we shared a brief history of educational reform in Singapore, thereby contextualising the recent Third Masterplan for ICT in Education.
from this introduction, both parties had a better appreciation of the areas of commonality between the issues faced by teachers in Singapore and America - these include high-stakes assessment and a (still) heavy curricular workload.
this enabled us to have a short discussion on the nature of assessment in informal learning contexts, such as those typified by the new media space. Katie and Robert shared how - in GameStar Mechanic - assessment was embedded within gameplay itself. such designs had been informed by the theoretical positions of people such as Barbara Rogoff and Jim Gee, with their calls to move away from standardised tests, and towards understandings of assessment through investigating the creative outputs and dispositions as afforded by the deep involvement and immersive contexts that characterise much of new media.
this led quite naturally to a discussion of the conversations between curriculum developers and game designers (i have elaborated on this in my paper on the Six Learnings framework). we agreed that one of the challenges facing these two parties was to engage each other on an equal footing, and thereby move towards designing, investigating and understanding assessment in a game-like way. this might take the form of earning certifications within the learner's trajectory through the curricular unit, as well as without (say, through ways outside of the formal bounds of curricular time and space). such certifications might then be part of a learner's individual portfolio. the rigour of such certifications would likely be in place because of the high standards of self-governance that emergent online communities typically hold themselves to.
in this way, the school would be reconceptualised from the centre of the learner's universe, to but one of the spaces in that universe.
Katie and Robert suggested some ways to structure such a curriculum for learning in a game-like way. instead of the vertical silos of traditional subject domains, one might look in terms of broad themes such as 'systems', 'the way things work', and 'codeworlds'. indeed, systems thinking might be postulated as one key with which to unlock 21st century literacies. as learners think in a systemic way, they necessarily have an appreciation of interrelatedness, energies, and flow. they would find greater relevance in the creative process and its related artifacts, as these would have clear applications beyond the traditional curriculum.
in their program, Katie and Robert conduct professional development for teachers through a summer institute. teachers are given opportunities to talk about fostering collaborative dispositions, and learn about the principles and architecture of game design. in particular, the potential of virtual worlds as platforms upon which to dialogue, practice, and learn about such principles was highlighted.
through their participation in such professional development programs, both teachers and educational researchers have been presented with opportunities to observe for themselves the importance - and different affordances - of game design, and game play. Katie expressed it as understanding the importance of observing how learners use the 'edit' and 'play' modes in the games they work on, as well as (say) what is revealed by the differential uses by the learner of 'save' and 'save as'.
this brought us nicely back to the question of assessment of learning. one suggested methodology was the use of think-alouds during the creative process. assumptions which needed to be questioned in this regard, included the binary distinctions between work and play, formal and informal learning, and the issue of whether adult-figures are best placed in the conduct and interpretation of evaluative exercises.
at this point, the interesting issue of attitudinal differences with respect to the use of games in learning was raised. Mimi Ito's work was cited, and of particular note was that in contrast to home-backgrounds in middle and upper-middle income families, parents from working class backgrounds felt more strongly that computers should be used for work, as a way of augmenting productivity (narrowly defined) and that - in general - they should not be "messed around" with.
by way of conclusion, a key take-away is that learning interventions should not be about the game itself (ie, not about learning through gameplay). rather, a far more deep and productive developmental trajectory would be thinking carefully about learning in game-like ways, and - if properly understood - this would involve much more than simply the tacking on of an optional co-curricular after-school program for interested students. such an approach would betray a fundamental lack of understanding of the good work and philosophy of the Institute of Play. instead, curriculum needs to be re-thought from the ground up to continually incorporate systems thinking, metacognition, cooperative learning, and peer critique. only then can the learner's experience be considered to approach learning in game-like ways.
