I read this fascinating article by Alison Gopnik on Smithsonian.com and I wanted to share the main thrust of it because I think it reiterates the importance of play. “Walk into any preschool and you’ll find toddling superheroes battling imaginary monsters. We take it for granted that young children play and, especially, pretend. Why do […]
Archive | Learning
RSS feed for this sectionReforming education
The reason I do the job I do, is because I believe that education can change lives. I believe that is a universally applicable truth. For some though, the importance and potential impact is more significant. I am privileged to work with a host of organisations helping them develop and deliver their learning provision. One […]
The Gamification of Education
We often think that gamification is a new idea but we forget, we’ve been turning exams and tests into games for a long long time. Here’s a really good infographic on the subject from Knewton and Column Five Media
iPad vs Textbooks
With all the debate about technology in classroom, this infographic from Online Teaching degree offers an interesting perspective. Created by: OnlineTeachingDegree.com
Game Mechanics and Learning Theory
To bring together the series on how learning theories overlap with games, I’ve drawn up a table of how game mechanics relate to the ideas about how we learn. By using and combining various definitions of game mechanics (Wikipedia, SCVNGR & Gamification.org), it is possible to map how dynamics correspond to the various learning theories. […]
Social Learning and Games
In this final look at how each of the major learning theories relate to games, we explore the ideas behind social learning. In the social and contextual approach to learning, the outcome is for the learner to become socially accepted and to be an effective member within a community. This is what is commonly referred […]
News that defined us
Helping young people to critically “read” the news is crucial if we are to develop a society that can make sense of unfolding events. Increasingly, children are disengaged from “reliable” mainstream news organisation and instead use partisan or unsubstantiated sources for their information about current affairs and the world around them. The News that Defined […]
Experiential learning and Games
Many theorists propose that we learn from our experiences that is, that effective perception and processing of experiences improves performance. Merrill suggests that the most effective learning environments have problem solving as their basis. This trial and improvement, problem-solving covers four distinct phases of learning: Activation of prior experience; Demonstration of skills; Application of skills; […]
Constructivism and Games
Continuing my series on the relationship between the various learning theories and games, this post explores the idea of constructivism. From the constructivist perspective, learning is not a stimulus-response phenomenon as described by Behaviourism, rather it requires self-regulation and the building of conceptual structures through reflection and abstraction[1]. In constructivist theory, the learner takes an […]
Cognitivism and games
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, […]