Video Game Learning versus Learning in School by @PGMusician

I was watching a programme on the BBC called ‘Game Changers’, a controversial programme about the controversial subject of the impact of video games on teenage minds, when I started wondering about the true impact of video games on our development. It depicts the story of Grand Theft Auto (GTA) and the civil lawsuit brought against them by the victims of a copycat killing. There has been much debate on the impact of video games on promoting violence, but I believe that there are other things that video games can bring to our development.

This is a re-blog post originally posted by Sean Dingley and published with kind permission.

The original post can be found here.

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As many of my colleagues (and students) will tell you, I am an avid gamer and would, quite happily, spend an entire holiday playing, and completing, a game. The intrinsic enjoyment of playing the game keeps me engaged for long periods of time and, despite numbers of failures (I die and mess up A LOT), I keep going until I am successful. If I struggle with a mission, I will go back and improve my skills or character until the mission is manageable. I get frustrated, but I overcome this frustration.

Now I know that this may sound entirely irrelevant to you, but to me it suggests that when I am playing, I display a growth mindset and I imagine that anyone playing them must have one too. Of course, you get the stories (and videos) of people who are unable to take losing and start throwing things, but these are a minority and are generally mocked by the gaming the community.

The question is – how can we replicate the elements of playing games in education to promote growth mindsets? The key difference is how we can bring the same intrinsic enjoyment that people find in video games into the classroom. I am a strong believer in contextual learning – something which is promoted heavily in video games. For example – the game introduces a new skill, gives you time to practise the skill, sets you a challenge which involves the skill and then allows you to practise the skill in a contextual situation and then you continue to use this skill throughout the game as opportunities present themselves. The player has the opportunity to master the skill before they are put into a situation where they will fail – an important consideration for learning in the classroom. Yes, they may make a mistake in the training, but it is not going to affect the outcome of the game.

There are many more aspects of video games which could be considered positive, but the fact is, our students are often better at video games than learning in our classrooms. If we start to replicate some of the techniques used in video games, we may be able to harness the excellent growth mindsets found in gamers. Whether it is linear progression, a choice of learning and development or even just being able to see your player develop and feel the difference, we have a lot to learn!

You can read other posts written by Sean by clicking here

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