The key term from this video is engagement. Every day I have to consider how to engage my students. Sometimes it is easy and other times not. Video games and virtuality can help with this by the nature of its design. While I was viewing this the idea of ZPD came to mind. That is basically the optimal level of difficulty for the most learning to take place. Games seem to address and engagement ZPD through many different techniques. It does this through a combination of wanting and liking or as Tom Chatlfield said, ambition and delight. They drive us on to want more success in an enjoyable way.
The 7 ways he highlighted were:
- experience bars that measure progress
- multiple long and short term aims
- rewarding effort
- rapid, frequent, and clear feedback
- elements of uncertainty
- windows of enhanced attention
- collaboration with other people
One of the elements I find most exciting is that of feedback. It is often so difficult to provide the immediate feedback to individual students on the task at hand, and it is so crucial. Many younger students need a visual to help them notice progress that they are making. Experience and progress bars make this very simple. There is a reading program my students use where they read a book and take a quiz. Their goal is to maintain at least an 80 to 90 percent success rate on the quizzes. This is very difficult for them to understand without a visual. I was very excited this year when they changed the program and included a success bar. The kids really were paying attention to it and understood. Unfortunately they took it away. It made a big difference in a negative way.
No comments:
Post a Comment