Gaming Brown Bag: Typo

Attended an session today that highlighted a game called Typo: http://gaming.psu.edu/EGCTypo. Typo was something that I had seen earlier and tried out. It was good to hear from the instructor who was using the game in her class. To provide some context, the instructor was teaching students who have poor spelling and grammar skills. To work on these skills she submitted a proposal to the EGC to create a game. The hope was that students would be more motivated to work on their skills in a game format, rather than with traditional methods. After using the game, students showed statistically significantly improved progress. There were no real reasons supplied for why students improved. So here are a few possibilities:

  • students were more highly motivated to do more repetitions because the game “hooked” them. Games have this effect. A great example is fantasy football. Although many fans enjoy watching football, make a game within the game hooks even more fans into making apparently meaningless games, very meaningful.
  • creation of the game caused the instructor to look more deeply into the course goals to make a better plan for student success. The instructor mentioned that a big part of what made this successful for her was challenging her own “traditional” views on teaching and learning.
  • the game allowed for students to work through the necessary principles themselves, rather than going at the pace of the student the instructor chooses in a classroom discussion. During the session, we went through the game together. What that showed me is that working in a large group on skills only targets a few learners. I even found myself just letting other members complete the activity.
  • students got immediate feedback. Students were able to immediately see if they were correct with points added or incorrect with points taken away. From what the instructor said, she was supplementing the course with instruction. But in a completely virtual environment, it is necessary to add more detailed feedback. It would also be preferable to require some reflection to support long-term memory.

This is not an exhaustive list, but a start.

Something that I thought was lacking was a chance for students to help each other. It would be nice to have some sort of social media component that would allow students to help one another. This would help in two respects. A remember hearing that when broken into levels (low, medium, and high) that low students work best with low or medium students. If the instructor is above high, having students come back to the expert might not be the best strategy. Also, when a struggling student is able to help someone else learn, it helps them to see that they are an important and valued member of the learning community.

All in all, a great session. Enjoyed

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