Telling and Doing One of the most fascinating aspects of this chapter was Learning Principle #25: Concentrated Sample Principle. I also thought about this yesterday in class while we were talking about the way educational models often replicate the idea of skill and drill learning.
The principle says that it is important for the initial stages of learning to deal with the condensed, basic forms that the player/student will deal with later. For example, in Gee's description of games he talks about the way games direct the virtual player to "hold forward" or "the action button" which is actually directed towards the person playing the game. Players then have a more merged sense of identity with the characters they are playing. Along with the "lesson" on game language, players learn basic skills in the beginning in a very condensed way that they might be able to build off later.
In the same way that the typical educational game becomes another way to drill students, the type of condensation applied to the material often considers the material in terms of rote skills. It will be easy, when we teach 103, to pretend that the condensed, fundamental information is knowing the buzzwords like ethos, pathos, logos, etc. We might make the mistake of trying to have the students understand the words, force them to use the words X number of times in their essay, or say that they must have one paragraph on each of the three parts. The problem is, students can regurgitate ethos, pathos, logos back to the teacher, but they won't be able to apply those principles when they get to their rhetorical analysis. When looking at a complex visual arrangement, such as an advertisement, knowing the definitions won't help the students much because they won't know what signs to look for to analyze.
I saw a fair number of students in the writing center who knew that ethos, pathos, and logos were important, and they could almost give a definition, but they couldn't really use the terms for visual analysis. On the other hand, it would also be a problem if the students were left to their own devices to simply figure out how these terms relate to visual apparatuses. Gee discusses this as well, in terms of the distinction between immersion and overt information. While humans recognize patterns, being simply dropped into an environment won't force students to learn actively and critically. The solution to this polemical thinking is to use learning models that games use, in which they begin with fundamental concepts (which we sometimes forget as teachers doesn't have to correspond to vocabulary terms).
So what would this mean for teaching 103? Or even for the games we will be creating in this class? To begin, we will need to think about what fundamental concepts underlie the things we are trying to teach our students. I suppose that I would try to teach my students about the social construction of language (in everyday speak) and then move into some really basic things to look for in an image in order to analyze it rhetorically. But I will leave this more to the question at the end.
Cultural Models in Games
I really enjoyed this chapter, possibly because it reminded me of Gorgias' encomium of helen, and the whole problem of making decisions within a moral structure. This wasn't particularly what Gee is getting at, but there is a definite relationship between Gorgias' argument for Helen, and Gee's treatment of how we make decisions based on cultural models. Ultimately, I feel, Gee leaves off with a Gorgias-esque portrayal of the situation. Gorgias plays with the idea of Helen's innocence though appealing to the way that her decisions were not entirely in her control. In the same way, Gee is portraying this concept of cultural models in a way which opens up the space where we not only control our characters (and ourselves) but we are also controlled.
Gee's three examples of in-game cultural models was also fascinating. I've played many games where the player is given the decision between "good" and "evil," and I've almost always played through the game twice in order to gain both experiences. I find this especially true when I end the game satisfied that I have destroyed "evil," and there seems to be no way that there could be two sides to the story. I open up a second campaign because I'm curious, and I often end up playing the whole way through in order to hone my abilities and to learn about how the side of "evil" is introduced. Even more interesting, though, was when I played Dragon Age, and the decisions were so multifaceted that there often wasn't necessarily a "good" and "evil" to choose between, but a series of complex consequences.
Addressing Cultural Models
I also, easily, enjoyed the part of the chapter where Gee discussed the conflict between the cultural models and scientific models in the physics class. But I, alas, am at my 800 word limit.
Questions For Discussion:
What are some ways to think about teaching fundamental concepts if it is not, as commonly understood, learning the vocabulary terms? What are the fundamental concepts we will need to start with for Second Life, Minecraft, or our future classrooms?
What would make you want to play "both sides" of a game, instead of just playing the "good" or "bad" side and leaving it be?
In what ways might the cultural models of our students in 103 come into conflict with the ideas we teach in 103?
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Your second question really intrigued me. I think about this often when writing a villain. What makes a good villain? What makes the bad guy enticing?
ReplyDeleteI think, if I were to switch sides and play the "bad" guy, there would have to be as much of a story there, as much of a compelling reason. A simple- "Let's take over the world" or "I was born evil" plot won't work for me. I don't care. However, if there is a back story about the villain that makes me feel for him/her, I would be enticed to play.
I don't know if that perspective is based around my identity as a writer, so it might be different for other people, but without a villain with some qualities I can relate to or understand, not much will put me on his/her side.