Like Megan, I really wanted to like this book. In my experience as a high school teacher, I saw the affect video games had on my students’ work habits and was hoping to come away from the reading with some strategies to get my students as interested in Steinbeck as they are in Sims.
Unfortunately, I did not find any “ready-made” strategies to use. Instead, I have 36 principles that I’m going to have to stretch my mind in order to make these principles apply. I know that Gee didn’t have to have classroom application examples for every principle, but he hardly had any at all. When I did see some application tips, they were usually for math and science classes. I’m really hoping we have a discussion like we did last class on possible ways to put theory into practice
This book read like a book about video games with some references to teaching rather than a book about pedagogy with some references to video games. For me, it was the most difficult reading we’ve been assigned because there was so much of it, and I just didn’t always see the point, honestly. I busted my ass this week trying to read this book, hoping at some point to glean something useful, but Gee spent too much time explaining video games instead of how to use video game principles into practice. I started seeing red every time I had to read about another video game summary.
What he SHOULD have done was take his principles and write a few paragraphs about how to use the techniques in class to help kids learn using video games as examples as how the principles work to engage kids. I don’t think his readers needed to be convinced about why video games are an okay place to look for teaching inspiration. Kids like video games, but I am never going to be able to compete with a video game unless Fairfax County hires me a pyrotechnics crew.
One activity I used that might fit a few of Gee’s principles* is one I used for Romeo and Juliet. I divided the class up into two groups, the Montagues and the Capulets. Every day I would keep track of who had his homework, who was on time to class, even who got good scores on assessments. I would award each team points based on their efforts. The teams were highly competitive and wanted to beat the other team. It created a rivalry similar to that in R&J while also bolstering interest in a subject that was sometimes stale (Shakespeare is not as interesting as Sonic). Team members also encouraged one another and texted to remind each other about assignments and screamed to get people to come to class.
The downside to this assignment is that it felt like my workload doubled. It was a lot of work to plan and even more work to count points. When it came time to teach R&J the next year, I opted not to do the assignment because I just couldn’t muster the energy to do it again.
I think good teachers are going to try to make their class engaging and in doing so, yes, their class might contain elements that good video games do, but I don’t think using video games as a model is necessary. Thanks for playing, Gee.
*Semiotic domain principle, identity principle, text principle, affinity group principle
“The downside to this assignment is that it felt like my workload doubled. It was a lot of work to plan and even more work to count points. When it came time to teach R&J the next year, I opted not to do the assignment because I just couldn’t muster the energy to do it again.”
This is a great quote, and it really sums up a lot of what I have been feeling not only in this course but in my other pedagogical studies; theories / studies–however interesting, insightful, or POTENTIALLY useful–tend to be untempered by practicality. Pedagogy is like morality; having a belief in something is very good and well, but if you don’t act upon it than what value is the belief? Knowing something you COULD do but can’t, given your limitations, could serve to dampen your teaching spirits. I mean, if we believe that standardized testing is wrong, but we teach it, what does that make us?.. I’m irritated that all pedagogical study does not conclude with the same line: “Thus, teachers should have smaller class sizes, more time to teach, more freedom in how they teach, and should receive more money for doing so.”
I can’t disagree with the statement that “teachers should have smaller class sizes, more time to teach, more freedom in how they teach, and should receive more money for doing so,” but it does not seem like the government or the rest of the country can afford to make that happen. While we are all holding our breath for change to happen we could try and experiment with other techniques, such as flipped classrooms, and use technology to help manage the larger class sizes. If we blend Gee’s ideas and use multimodal texts in conjunction with a flipped classroom there would be less hassle to deal with; there would be no need to count points when the computer can do it for you, and there would be fewer requests to repeat instructions as students could simply hit replay. Imagine having students play Scrabble as homework (go ahead and let them use the dictionary). The in-class time could be spent discussing student difficulties, assisting with projects, or the occasional writing session.
You could remove all of the stress from you Romeo and Juliet project if you had the technology to record the student achievements. I think that is the idea Gee is aiming for.