Gaming to Learn

Can gaming actually help us learn? This is exactly what Tim Chatfield argues in the following Ted Talk, and it makes a lot of sense. First of all, gaming has proliferated in the past twenty years. It is a multi-billion dollar industry. Tim argues that this is at least partially due to the rewards individuals (or groups) reap while engaging each other and the environment in a virtual world. Game designers can measure billions of data points while the game, and then calibrate the game--that is, balancing effort and reward--to keep players engaged.

Tim mentions 7 ways games reward the brain:

1. Experience bars--players can see their experience level and compare it to an end goal. They see themselves progress and take ownership of their attempting to reach the goal.
2. Multiple long and short term goals--lots of different tasks to give people a variety of options to choose from
3. Rewards for effort--everything done in the game reaps some kind of benefit. For example, if you kill a monster, you get at least a little bit of in-game currency.
4. Rapid, frequent, clear feedback--the player is often reminded of how she is doing and whether she is on the right track
5. An element of uncertainty--the gamer always has a chance for something really awesome to happen--they will get an extra, unexpected reward, for example.
6. Windows of enhanced attention--by measuring dopamine levels in the brain, we can predict windows of time when learning is taking place at an enhanced level.
7. Other people--"the biggest neurological turn on" is interacting with other people.

If we could somehow apply these same ideas in an education setting, I think the benefits would be huge. I envision a class in which students are engaged on an individual basis, each one learning at his own pace. Each achieving at a level appropriate to him. Some students zoom ahead of others at a blinding pace, others take the tortoise's approach, everyone learns. This is differentiating instruction at its finest.