Play with Learning

Cognitivism and games

busy brain

In this, the second part of my series on examining how learning theories relate to game play, I’m looking at the theory that suggests learning is dependent on mental capacity – cognitivism.

Cognitivism replaced Behaviourism as the dominant learning paradigm in the 1960s[1]. Cognitive psychology proposes that learning comes from mental activity such as memory, motivation, thinking and reflection.  Cognitivists believe that learning is an internal process that depends on the learner’s capacity, motivation and determination[2],[3].

Although cognitivists such as Jean Piaget[4] and Jerome Bruner[5] have different emphases, both believe that learning is demonstrated through a change in knowledge and understanding.  Cognitivists describe this change as altering a learner’s mental model.  Cognitivists maintain that the mind, thinking and understanding mediate the stimulus and response described by behaviourists.  That is, while learning may result in a change of behaviour, it is primarily a change in understanding.

Cognitivism focuses on the transmission of information from someone who knows (such as an ‘expert’ as opposed to facilitators) to learners who do not know.  The learners receive it, take it on board, store it, relate it to existing ideas and information that they already have, index it (like a filing system) and then retrieve it, so that they can find it in their memories later when they need it.  In cognitivism, learning is the process of connecting pieces of knowledge in meaningful and memorable ways.

However, working with older learners can be more difficult because in the cognitivist view, learning is more about modifying and extending ideas than adding new ones.  Although more mature learners may have ‘collected’ more ideas they may be ‘fixed’ or harder to change.

Cognitivism relies heavily on Piaget’s notion of age-dependent “stages of development” to define the mental capabilities of learners. For teachers in a cognitivist environment getting the balance between the transmission and facilitation is critical for effective learning.  Practitioners have to decide when to offer input (transmitted knowledge) to learners and when to facilitate a learner’s understanding of their own personal model.

In cognitivist thinking, purpose and outcomes are like a general sense of direction for a journey rather than a detailed specification of the shared, identical destination.

Cognitivism is more concerned with process than the product and is therefore demonstrated by games than improve reflexes, promote critical thinking or help people learn different patterns of association.  In 2009, Alain Lieury, professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Rennes comprehensively demolished claims that brain training games were any better than even the humble paper and pen for increasing brain ‘power’ but puzzles and strategy games that offer a free environment for decision-making such as Tetris, Age of Empires and Professor Layton  are good examples of the cognitivist approach.

Bandura’s later theory of Social Learning[6] attempts to bridge the gap between behaviourist and cognitive learning theories because it encompasses attention, memory, and motivation.

Behaviourism and Games

carrot

Recently I’ve been thinking about the relationship between Learning Theory and Game Design.  Clearly there are game mechanics that exploit particular learning traits and I thought it would be interesting to identify them.

Researchers have long studied the way in which individuals learn.  Over the years, academics have proposed a number of theories to describe and explain this process.  A recent assessment by Burgoyne[1] on schools of thought identified 14 different theories.  However, those fourteen fall into five broad categories that I’ll explore over the next few posts:

• Behaviourist
• Cognitivist
• Constructivist
• Experiential
• Social and contextual

Despite the different concepts, it is worth noting that there is no definitive theory for how we learn, rather we exhibit different characteristics depending on the objective and circumstance.

Behaviourism

Key behaviourist thinkers including Thorndike[2], Pavlov[3] and Skinner[4] have hypothesized that learning is a change in observable behaviour caused by external stimuli in the environment.  In behaviourist theory, change in behaviour demonstrates some learning.

Behaviourists describe “conditioning” as a universal learning process, dividing it into two types:

• classical conditioning occurs when a natural reflex responds to a stimulus
• operant conditioning occurs when a response to a stimulus is reinforced

The key principle of Behaviourism is the reward or punishment of a new behaviour, commonly described as the ‘carrot and stick’ approach to learning.  The theory states that rewarding someone for particular behaviour encourages him to behave in the same way in a similar situation.  The reward reinforces behaviour.  Conversely, if behaviour is punished, the subject is less likely to repeat it.  In Behaviourism, people can learn not to do things as well as to do things.

Behaviourism has had a particularly significant influence on teaching, training and instruction.  Learning objectives are typically described in Behaviourist terms and identify specific behaviour that is desirable (and hence rewarded).  For practical skills, a Behaviourist approach often follows a tell-show-practise-reinforce sequence.  This process describes what is going to be learnt, demonstrates how it is done, gives the learner an opportunity to practise and uses reinforcement to refine behaviour.  Rewards typically take the form of feedback.

A key feature of behaviourism is the fact it is based on observable behaviours: making it easy to collect and quantify research data.  However, there are many criticisms of the theory including its inability to describe learning that occurs in the absence of reinforcement (such as initial language learning), its disregard for changes in reinforced behaviour and its ignoring of any purely cognitive input.

Computer games are sometimes described as a “Skinner box” because of the way they offer reward or punishment for the player’s behaviour.  Like the classic experiment, many games require the performance of a repetitive task to achieve some goal or reward.  In behaviourist theory, a reward or positive reinforcer is anything that increases the frequency of a behaviour.  Conversely, punishment or negative reinforce is something that decreases the frequency of a behaviour.  The strict (narrative) structure and scheduling of rewards is classic behaviourism and characterises many games.

Traditional positive reinforcers in computer games include the following:

• Points
• Power-ups
• Bonuses
• Unlocks

Negative reinforcers include:

• Failure to beat high score
• An increase in obstacles or opponents
• A decline in health

Multiplayer and social games provide a set of social reinforcers including:

• Status
• Leaderboards

Some commentators including the Georgia Institute of Technology professor, Ian Bogost, argue that gamification is a product of a simplistic Behaviourist approach to game design. Game designer, Jon Radoff continues:

“The behaviorist approach to games that channels inquiry away from the harder problems of immersion, cooperation and competition that is so important to creating successful game experiences.”[5]

Merry Christmas!

christmas tree

This will be my last post of the year: I’m looking forward to spending a few work-free days with my family over Christmas.  I hope that you will be having a break too.

Play with Learning is one year old and I am delighted with how things have turned out over the last twelve months. I’ve enjoyed some really interesting and varied work – it’s precisely the mix that I’d hoped for when I set the company up –  a combination of theory and practice, research and production.

This year I’ve been happily working with:

• the BBC (helping them define a strategy for their learning games)
• the United Nations (developing a blended learning leadership program for head teachers in Palestinian schools)
• DESQ and Glasshead (for BBC Webwise)
• Numiko (for the forthcoming BBC Primary Art and Primary Geography websites)
• Tyneside Cinema (on the soon-to-be launched  News That Defined Us website for news media literacy)
• the University of Bradford (writing a Masters course on digital media production and delivering a final year module on Creative Media Enterprise)
• Channel 4, the National Film and Television School and Skillset (providing professional multiplatform production and Transmedia storytelling training)

It’s been a blissfully busy time! I’ve made lots of new friends and contacts.  I’ve played a lot and I’ve learnt a great deal.

I’m excited about the opportunities in 2012.  I know that some of the production pieces will launch in the next couple of months and there are lots of exciting projects in the pipeline.  Having said that, I’m always interested in new opportunities so maybe, just maybe there’s something that you and I could collaborate on?

maybe there’s something that you and I could collaborate on?

In the meantime, let me wish you a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

What Games are Good For?

In spite of my criticisms of many educational games, I believe passionately in the potential of games to inspire learning. I don’t think that games are a panacea but they do have many characteristics that can make a profoundly positive impact on our lives.  The real educational value for gaming lies in four key areas:

• Cosmetics – making the unpleasant or mundane more palatable
• Confidence – offering the chance to practise and fail softly
• Catalyst – as a spring board to further investigation
• Collaboration – as a means of pooling our intellectual and social capital

Cosmetics

bbc questionaut

For many years we have adopted game mechanics to make ordinary activities more engaging. Recently that process has gained a higher profile and more glamour through the term “gamification.”

The most common form of educational game is the quiz.  A quiz is simply, a glorified, gamified, test. I’m not being disparaging, on the contrary: there is no doubt that ‘treating’ assessment in this way makes it more engaging without diminishing any of its quantification value.  Quizzes make the process of testing knowledge more enjoyable but you still need to identify the right answer to progress.

Although mainly used to check knowledge, this same approach can help raise awareness and change behaviour.  It’s a technique deployed for loyalty reward points such as Air Miles, travelling (Foursquare and Gowalla)  and environmentally-friendly driving behaviour (Toyota Prius, Nissan Leaf, etc.)

Confidence

flight sim

There are many circumstances where we want to practice before being exposed to a real situation.  Those circumstances might be technical, financial or social but where getting it wrong in reality might cause real problems. Games provide the perfect environment to practice, to experiment, to fail softly.

It goes without saying that we’d prefer our airline pilots to train using simulators before taking the controls of a real jumbo jet.  Games can also provide a proving ground for social interactions, leadership skills, teamwork.  Although the fidelity of the game is unlikely to present an entirely true mapping with reality, the experience of playing within a recognisable environment helps develop important, transferable, understanding.  I suspect the translation to reality will always need some additional contextualisation and the scaffolding but it does at least prepare the ground, and even if the game and reality are radically different it can help the player feel more confident.

Catalyst

myst

Where games have proved to be enormously valuable is when the experience has been scaffolded or supported by an enthusiastic teacher who can use the game play as a stimulus for other activity. Good teachers (formal or informal) can draw out of the game transferable lessons such as urban planning from SimCity, rotational geometry from Tetris, creative writing from Myst or social etiquette from the Sims.

In these circumstances, the accuracy of the game is less important than its ability to engage:

Jonny Ball famously said “Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good joke.”

Games are excellent in their ability to bring a subject to life, encourage exploration and provoke further thought.  Even if a game is not strictly true in its representation of objects or events those inaccuracies can form a powerful stimulus for further investigation and discussion. From my own experience, I know that the flaws in games can prove powerful provocations for debate and that that can generate profound learning.

Collaboration

CASP9 Refinement Puzzle 2

The combined problem-solving activity of the gaming world is racking up some astonishing figures – people have played World of Warcraft for an incredible 6 million years of combined effort since its launch in 2004.  The biggest growth area in gaming is multiplayer games with millions of players around the globe regularly engaged.  And the activity is predominantly team-based – these are virtual communities at ‘work’.  That shared experience, that voluntary collaboration – “cognitive surplus”, as Clay Shirky might call it, “blissful productivity” Jane McGonigal might say, can be channelled into very valuable focus such as the example of gamers identifying the structure of a new retroviral enzyme.

There is something deeply satisfying about solving a problem, beating a challenge or experiencing something new when it is done with others.  The social nature of online gaming has great potential to bring people together for a common purpose.

Imagine if we made more use of that combined effort: what other real world problems and challenges might gamers solve?

I have no doubt whatsoever that games can make a unique contribution to education and society.  I think that in the past we have, perhaps, been overconfident in our expectations: wrongly assuming that games on their own could solve many, if not all, of the barriers to learning.  However, if we take the true characteristics of games and embed them in a well thought through set of experiences then we have something that  will be genuinely different and make a genuine difference.

Get the most out of Google

This is a great set of tips for using Google from HackCollege.com.  Not sure that it needs to be an infographic but it does look pretty.

Public education in America

Interesting infographic from OnlineUniversities.com about the state of public education in the USA.

Will the same happen in the UK?

Via: Online Universities Blog

Open data explained

This is a great animation from Inventorium describing how we can share and use government collected data. (Mild warning: you might find the narrator’s pronunciation of ‘data’ a bit irritating)

There’s more to play

taxonomy of play

As a teenager I spent lots of time in my garage designing and making boardgames. Highly elaborate fiendishly complex and virtually unplayable boardgames.

The first computer game I designed from scratch was a simple town planning simulation. It was about 15 years ago and I built it to complement a theatre show for schoolchildren. Since then I’ve largely concentrated on computer and console-based gaming.

Attending this year’s Games+Learning+Society conference in Madison, Wisconsin, I had a moment of epiphany. Talking to the likes of Katie Salen, Eric Zimmerman, and Colleen Macklin reminded me that games can take many forms and in most circumstances play doesn’t require technology. I needed reminding that children can play on their own. Adults too.

Corinne Hutt’s model of play (shown above) eloquently describes the range we enjoy.  She argues that in epistemic play we explore the basic properties of materials and in doing so find the basis for developing further knowledge, skills and understanding.

Ludic play, including socio-dramatic play, provides opportunities for language play and creativity and for rehearsal and practice.

Games-play offers increasing levels of difficulty and gratuitous rules.

These helpful definitions provide a useful framework and a timely reminder that the benefits of play are not confined to the electronic world.  At the GLS conference, we derived as much pleasure playing simple card games such as the MetaGame as we did from the Arcade.  Cards, anyone?

Facebook vs Google+

This infographic from Technobombs is describes the differences between Facebook and Google+ very elegantly.

Facebook vs Google+ by Technobombs

Educational games

baf 2011

Yesterday I spoke at BAF Games.  This is a summary of my ‘Play with Learning’ talk.  I have embedded links to supporting information into the post .  Sadly, I couldn’t capture the lively Q&A session afterwards.

I made my first game as a young teenager – a board game so incomprehensibly complex and tedious, it only ever had one player. Me. I programmed my first computer game at the age of 14, using the machine code printed in the back of a Sinclair User magazine. It took a week to input, twenty minutes to load and thirty seconds before it crashed. Despite those experiences, I spent innumerable hours playing games on my ZX Spectrum.

At the same time, although not entirely related to my game-playing, my school-based education collapsed.  I left school with a clutch of poor GSCE’s, a single in A level Government and Politics and a report that read straight ‘E’s.

For me there’s always been a link between games and learning, but it’s taken years of industry and professional experience including my time as a BBC Commissioner and a PhD in the educational psychology of games to fully appreciate the potential benefits.

I am a game player but I’m also a lifelong learner. I am a passionate believer in the potential of education to change lives.  I believe that learning is something that can make the world a better place.  It can transform society, culture and the economy by catapulting people out of often horrendous situations and helping them realise their potential.

Learning is not an onerous activity – we love to learn.  Everyone loves to learn.  The thrill and satisfaction of acquiring some knowledge or skill, or overcoming some challenge by developing a solution is universal.  Just because the experience of school poisons some attitudes towards education it doesn’t mean that learning ever loses it’s ability to delight.

Play and learning are intrinsically linked.  Indeed, we learn in three ways: repetition, play and dialogue.  From the moment we are born, play is a basic human desire.

Who could deny that play is enormously attractive?  Regardless of whether it is computer-based or real-world, sports and games are a universal passion.  You only have to consider the viewing figures for the Olympic Games and the World Cup to recognise that play is universally appealing.  The last World Cup had more than 3 billion viewers making it the single biggest collective event in human history.

But it’s not just passive entertainment.  In terms of activity duration it wouldn’t be unreasonable to say that video gameplay is unprecedented in human history: some estimates suggest that we play three billion hours per week, 150 million people play FarmVille each month.  That’s an astonishing amount of time and reach.

Some of the most fervent game players are exactly the same people who disengage or drop out of school and play no further constructive role in society.  With their devotion to gameplay, it is easy to see the attraction of making education more game-like.

In education the appeal of games represents a form of Holy Grail.  The idea that a disaffected disinterested disempowered teenage boy (or girl) might spend hours and hours of their own time tackling a formidable problem, want to talk about it with his friends, and pursue it until he succeeds is something that any school teacher would love to be able to mimic. A gamer will willingly invest more than the 100 hours needed to complete a game like GTA 4; that’s the equivalent to half a GCSE or 10 credits towards a Masters degree.  Gaming seems like the obvious solution to reengage young people.

Sadly, we tend to deliver them ‘games’ like this:

magnet game

We deceive ourselves that these activities are going to make the same impact  as the games we play at home. In fact, if we’re honest, this sort of “educational game” is neither educational or a game because it doesn’t possess the characteristics of either.

Perhaps it is unreasonable to compare educational resources like this with commercial off-the-shelf games.  After all Grand Theft Auto 4 had a $100m budget; that works out at $1m per hour of activity.  Most educational resources have a minuscule fraction of that.   But sadly, even the easy-to-implement feedback and rewards systems don’t come close to what the entertainment-focused competitors provide.

The other problem with educational games is we’re not all gamers so for some the prospect of playing a computer game isn’t that appealing.That said, I’m not suggesting that we can’t all appreciate games and gain something from them.

Many of the perceived benefits of educational games are a consequence of the Hawthorne effect where the extra effort committed to introducing and testing the game are the reason for improved performance, not the game itself. Actually, there is very little evidence to suggest that playing games, without any further contextualisation, delivers any transferable learning at all which is why I’ve said, provocatively, games teach us nothing.

Perhaps when you take these resources apart, closer inspection reveals very few gaming characteristics.  In my post what is a game?  I identify the following core characteristics that turns an activity into a game:

I haven’t included fun in that list.  For me, fun is a bonus in gameplay but it is by no means a defining characteristic.  Indeed most games that I play are not fun.  Most games that I play, if they are worth playing, are characterised by long, grinding effort.  I rarely finish games feeling euphoric – more often I feel exhausted but satisfied.  What makes the effort worthwhile is the quality of the rewards.

Many of those game characteristics are intrinsically associated with learning.   Games meet learning in the following aspects:

• Opportunities for reflection and evaluation
• Access to feedback on performance
• Record progress
• Purposeful interactivity
• Achieving learning objectives
• Opportunities to collaborate, investigate or experience
• Chance to correct and learn from errors

Actually, I think games teach us lot.

So, in spite of my criticisms of “educational games,” I still believe passionately in their potential to inspire learning. And I think their real educational value lies in four areas:

• Cosmetics – making the unpleasant more palatable
• Confidence – offering the chance to practise and fail softly
• Catalyst – as a spring board to further investigation
• Collaboration – as a means of pooling our intellectual and social capital

I think that learning is of the utmost importance to our society and our world .While I don’t believe that games are a panacea, I do believe that they offer a unique way to reach and develop our potential and tackle many of the problems we face.

Playing games often brings out the best in us.  It inspires ingenious solutions, hard work and perseverance and global collaboration.  In games we believe that anything is possible and that we are capable of anything.  Surely those are traits that we should bring to bear on life.