The Learning Brain

Chocolate-covered broccoli. That’s what designers of educational games call digital products that drape dull academic instruction in the superficially appealing disguise of a game. Instead of placing the fun of discovery and mastery at the heart of the game, these imposters use the trappings of games “as a sugar coating” for their otherwise unappetizing content, note Jacob Habgood and Shaaron Ainsworth.

The two researchers, from the University of Nottingham in England, recently decided to find out whether children could detect such subterfuge, and whether they benefited more from lessons that masquerade as games—or from games that make learning an end in itself.

Habgood and Ainsworth began by creating a game, called Zombie Division, that aimed to teach math to students aged seven to 11. In the authors’ words, Zombie Division “is a 3D adventure game based around sword fighting in which the player (acting as the hero Matrices) must use different attacks to mathematically divide opponents according to the numbers on their chests.”

The scientists designed two different variants of the game: an “intrinsic” version, in which mastery of mathematical challenges produced rewards within the game, and an “extrinsic” version, in which a period of play was followed by an online math quiz. Both types contained the same instructional content, but in the extrinsic version that content was “delivered away from flow-inducing

Ineffective games bestow gold stars for good performance instead of making the incentives internal to the game.

game-play, and presented as abstract mathematical questions,” the researchers note. (“Flow,” as many gamers know, is a psychological state characterized by energetic, engaged immersion.) In the intrinsic model of the game, for example, a player who correctly divided his opponent with his sword would be rewarded by seeing his foe split into a proportional number of ghosts. In the quiz built into the extrinsic model, a player would simply be notified that her answer to a division problem was correct.

In Habgood and Ainsworth’s experiment, reported in the Journal of the Learning Sciences, one group of students was assigned to play the intrinsic version of Zombie Division for two hours. Asecond group played the extrinsic version for the same length of time. Afterward, both groups were tested on their knowledge of division.

The results were clear: The children who had played the intrinsically-rewarding game learned more math. Next, the researchers allowed another group of children to choose the option they preferred. The verdict here was even more definitive: The pupils spent seven times longer playing the intrinsic version of Zombie Division.

Many educational games fail to live up to their promise of effective, enjoyable learning; Habgood and Ainsworth suggest that’s because the games rely on an extrinsic reward structure, bestowing gold stars for good performance instead of making the incentives internal to the game. The key to creating a successful educational game, the authors conclude, is what they call “intrinsic integration”: ensuring that the mechanics of the game mesh tightly with the content the game is trying to teach. It’s a lesson that applies to offline education, too: Make the vegetables themselves taste good, and you won’t have to bribe kids with chocolate.

world-shaker:

As I wrote in my previous blog, A Neurologist Makes the Case for the Video Game Model as a Learning Tool blog and the accompanying video, the most popular computer games take players through increasingly challenging levels as they became more and more skillful. As skill improves, the next challenge stimulates new mastery to just the right extent that the player could reach with practice and persistence. Students need challenge suited to their background knowledge and abilities if they are to remain motivated to persevere and build mastery of foundational knowledge.

This is an excellent article for those of you interested in incorporating gaming elements into your teaching. There are two really solid strategies in here, along with some great, practical advice.

Any such method should be used a supplementary tool to other ways of learning. The downside of this learning is that even though the mind is picking up on the shortcuts, when you ask the student to fully explain the concept behind the shortcut, I image he/she is likely to have difficulty articulating that. I could imagine using this method in addition to purely conceptual problem solving, as well as intentional written reflection exercises meant to evaluate and assess the value of the processess together.

Now, a small group of cognitive scientists is arguing that schools and students could take far more advantage of this same bottom-up ability, called perceptual learning. The brain is a pattern-recognition machine, after all, and when focused properly, it can quickly deepen a person’s grasp of a principle, new studies suggest. Better yet, perceptual knowledge builds automatically: There’s no reason someone with a good eye for fashion or wordplay cannot develop an intuition for classifying rocks or mammals or algebraic equations, given a little interest or motivation.

“When facing problems in real-life situations, the first question is always, ‘What am I looking at? What kind of problem is this?’ ” said Philip J. Kellman, a psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Any theory of how we learn presupposes perceptual knowledge — that we know which facts are relevant, that we know what to look for.”

The challenge for education, Dr. Kellman added, “is what do we need to do to make this happen efficiently?”

Scientists have long known that the brain registers subtle patterns subconsciously, well before a person knows he or she is learning. In a landmark 1997 experiment, researchers at the University of Iowa found that people playing a simple gambling game with decks of cards reported “liking” some decks better than others long before they realized that those decks had cards that caused greater losses.. Some participants picked up the differences among decks after just 10 cards.

Experts develop such sensitive perceptual radar the old-fashioned way, of course, through years of study and practice. Yet there is growing evidence that a certain kind of training — visual, fast-paced, often focused on classifying problems rather then solving them — can build intuition quickly. In one recent experiment, for example, researchers found that people were better able to distinguish the painting styles of 12 unfamiliar artists after viewing mixed collections of works from all 12 than after viewing a dozen works from one artist, then moving on to the next painter. The participants’ brains began to pick up on differences before they could fully articulate them.

“Once the brain has a goal in mind, it tunes the perceptual system to search the environment” for relevant clues, said Steven Sloman, a cognitive scientist at Brown University. In time the eyes, ears and nose learn to isolate those signs and dismiss irrelevant information, in turn sharpening thinking.

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world-shaker:

With three short and compelling ideas. Worth the two minutes to read it.

revolutionizeed:

Interesting but lengthy read about gaming and learning…

“Every single student is getting an individualized education,” said Hodgkins Principal Sarah Gould, who helped usher in the reform at her school two years ago. “We are giving our kids exactly what they need when they need it.”

Children work at their own level in each subject and must demonstrate proficiency in various learning targets, achieving a score of 75% or higher before they’re allowed to move on to the next level.

During a recent visit to Jennifer Gregg’s literacy class, students ranging in age from 8 to 10 were gathered in small groups or working on their own to hit their learning targets. Each table had a basket with books separated into four different reading levels.

Gregg says when she first heard about standards-based learning, she wondered, “How do you juggle that many levels in one classroom?”

Now, she sees the benefits, since students aren’t frustrated by work that’s too hard, nor bored with assignments that are too easy.

“The kids know exactly what they’re working on … and what they need to do, so it’s very empowering for them,” she said.

Gregg’s students come to her when they’re ready to take the proficiency test to move to the next level.