Gee: Good video games allow players to be not just passive consumers but also active producers who can customize their own learning experiences. (208)
Nicoll: This immediately interested me. As I read this sentence I thought Gee was officially a nut because how could you possibly let students decide what they wanted to learn? Nothing would get done. But as I finished this paragraph, Gee talks about the students being insiders verses outsiders. I realized that Gee wanted the students to be included in what they learned. In this section, Gee is talking about game companies encouraging players to create their own “maps” and therefore playing the game more successfully. I’m not going to say I completely understood the map analogy, but it seems to me that what he is saying is that game companies want players to create their own ways to play the game and not have all players reach the end the same way. I think the way this translates into the classroom is by letting students choose what book to read from a pre-determined selection. If the students actively participate in what they are being taught, then they are learning, whether they like it or not. Another way to do this is by letting the students lead the discussion. Let them bring in topics that they found relevant to the reading or experiment and let the discussion grow from that point. Asking a class “what do you think about this specific thing” may not be the best way to get a response. The class may not have seen things from the same perspective and they may not be able to answer you r question. However, asking, “what did you think” opens up the discussion floor and the student may surprise you with what they come up with. What Gee is saying is that good teachers will allow the students to have their own thoughts and the good teacher will allow these thoughts to be developed in a way that best benefits the student. If the student isn’t engaged, then they aren’t paying attention; and if they aren’t paying attention, they can’t be learning. Letting them “customize their own learning experiences” gets them to pay attention.
Pratt: I use [contact zone] to refer to social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other… (1)
Nicoll: Pratt’s definition reminds me of the meetings of teachers and students. Too often, teachers try to teach on their terms and the students try to learn on theirs. The two planes rarely meet. Teachers, being teachers, have a level of literacy that is obviously much higher than the students. Teachers need to be able to bring themselves down to the level of the students. My father has been a junior high school teacher for almost thirty years. He also thinks it’s funny to listen to rap music. One day he was discussing the latest Eminem song with a student in the hallway. Another teacher asked him how and more importantly why he was able to do that. My father said that he refuses to watch the shows that the kids watch and he usually doesn’t like their movies, but he usually likes their music. That is his way of relating to the students. It is how he gets into their contact zone. Pratt says that Guaman Poma got into Phillip III contact zone by learning his language. Unless it is a foreign language class, teachers generally speak the same language as their students. And students probably aren’t going to go to Blockbuster or Netflix and order a movie from when their teachers were young. It falls to the teacher to enter the students contact zone. If listening to Eminem is going to endear students to the teacher and lets the student see that maybe the teacher does know what they are talking about, then the teacher is just going to have to listen to Eminem. Just like Guaman Poma had to learn some Spanish to converse with Phillip III.
Russell: Instead of viewing writing as a complex and continuously developing response to s specialized, text- based, discourse community, highly embedded in the differentiated practices of that community, educators came to see it as a set of generalizable, mechanical “skills” independent of disciplinary knowledge. (5-6)
Nicoll: I think this is linked to the discussion we had last week in class. Unfortunately most teachers see the English class as the place where students should learn how to write. Teachers of other subjects don’t think that they should have to teach grammar and sentence structure and comma placement. And to some extent they are right. By the time a student reaches the level where they are required to write research papers, the science teacher should not have to explain the difference between a colon and a semi colon. However, it is not incumbent upon the English teacher to demonstrate how to write a document based essay for History class. That job belongs to the history teacher. While basic grammar and writing skills are learned in English class in elementary school, the high school English teacher has other things to worry about and their own curriculum to teach. It isn’t going to affect the grade on the History Regents for the History teacher to take one class or even one week going over the particulars of writing DBQ Essays. In fact, it will probably raise the grade because the student will know how to approach the essay. The English teacher should not have to bear the burden of teaching how to write for all subjects. Each individual subject teacher must teach how to write for their own class.
I liked this format of journal because it allowed me to reflect on what I felt was important instead of summarizing how I felt about the whole reading. This was much more focused and helped me stay on my point because I had a very specific reference. I also allowed me to easily relate to the other readings. Since I knew what interested me in the first reading, I could look for similar ideas in the other readings.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
Blog 2
Gee: In School, words and meanings usually float free of material conditions and embodied actions. They take on only general, so-called decontextualized meanings. (84)
Nicoll: I agree with Gee to some extent. I believe that the reason for teaching these sort of half definitions is because of the “teach for the test” process. Teachers have to make sure that their students are learning what they need for the test and learning it well enough that they can pass the test. Basic definitions are often the way in which this is done. I think that teachers feel that there is not enough time to teach in depth, situated definitions. Teaching the lowest based definition seems to be the way that teachers believe they are guaranteed to fit in everything in their lesson plans. However, if, on the day of the test, the definition required is a situated definition, the teacher has to hope that the student can figure it out on their own. In the long run the student is suffering, especially if they cannot make the leap from point “A” to point “A+1.” By this I mean that if a student cannot build an idea off of the basic definition, then what have they really learned and how will they be able to function in higher educational classes. On page 102, Gee says that you can’t use the commands described in the game manual unless you understand it in terms of the game. In other words, what good will the explanation be if you can’t understand the context of what you are doing?
Gee: Rather, as group members are discovering things through their own activity, the good science instructor comes up, assesses the progress they are making and the fruitlessness of the paths down which they are proceeding in their inquiry, and then gives overt information that is, at that point, usable. (120)
Nicoll: This reminded me of Murray’s reading from last week. There is no harm in encouragement and in fact it is probably more beneficial than critique. Pushing a child in one direction over another will allow them to develop their strengths, and later they will be able to work on their weaknesses when they are confident with the skills they have already developed. While the teacher is assessing the work the students are doing they can not only offer encouragement, but the much needed guidance that is necessary for the untrained student to achieve the results they are seeking. The student is still practically applying what they have learned and they will still achieve a sense of accomplishment because of the guidance and encouragement of the teacher. Telling a student, “No, this is wrong,” is unhelpful and discouraging. They probably won’t learn everything they need to learn. Offering guidance in the form of “You did good, now try this,” is more helpful and probably will have more of an impact on the learner.
Williams: There seems to be a fear of empty space. (15)
Nicoll: In all of the examples Williams shows, the original designs are overly spaced out. I agree that there is a fear of empty space because the original designs are trying so hard to fill the business card, advertisement or page, that the designs are lost. My eye got lost between the text. In the examples where Williams changed what needed to be changed, there was still empty space, but you hardly noticed it because the information was easy to find and your eye was drawn to the information rather than scanning the design for the information necessary. Williams goes on to say that everyone knows the importance of proximity and that we use it, but now we need to use it correctly. As I sit here at work, looking at my boss’s letter head that he took upon himself to redesign last week, I can’t help thinking that it looked better before. His name is in the middle, but the phone number, email address, and office address are all on different sides of the page and the states where he is admitted to practice are in the middle. Now, I know someone from California is not going to call us and see if we can handle a matter in San Diego. It seems that the contact information was better off in the middle because that is where his name is and that is where people are going to look first. The empty space on the side of the letter head didn’t matter because it was unnoticeable with the original placement of the information.
Nicoll: I agree with Gee to some extent. I believe that the reason for teaching these sort of half definitions is because of the “teach for the test” process. Teachers have to make sure that their students are learning what they need for the test and learning it well enough that they can pass the test. Basic definitions are often the way in which this is done. I think that teachers feel that there is not enough time to teach in depth, situated definitions. Teaching the lowest based definition seems to be the way that teachers believe they are guaranteed to fit in everything in their lesson plans. However, if, on the day of the test, the definition required is a situated definition, the teacher has to hope that the student can figure it out on their own. In the long run the student is suffering, especially if they cannot make the leap from point “A” to point “A+1.” By this I mean that if a student cannot build an idea off of the basic definition, then what have they really learned and how will they be able to function in higher educational classes. On page 102, Gee says that you can’t use the commands described in the game manual unless you understand it in terms of the game. In other words, what good will the explanation be if you can’t understand the context of what you are doing?
Gee: Rather, as group members are discovering things through their own activity, the good science instructor comes up, assesses the progress they are making and the fruitlessness of the paths down which they are proceeding in their inquiry, and then gives overt information that is, at that point, usable. (120)
Nicoll: This reminded me of Murray’s reading from last week. There is no harm in encouragement and in fact it is probably more beneficial than critique. Pushing a child in one direction over another will allow them to develop their strengths, and later they will be able to work on their weaknesses when they are confident with the skills they have already developed. While the teacher is assessing the work the students are doing they can not only offer encouragement, but the much needed guidance that is necessary for the untrained student to achieve the results they are seeking. The student is still practically applying what they have learned and they will still achieve a sense of accomplishment because of the guidance and encouragement of the teacher. Telling a student, “No, this is wrong,” is unhelpful and discouraging. They probably won’t learn everything they need to learn. Offering guidance in the form of “You did good, now try this,” is more helpful and probably will have more of an impact on the learner.
Williams: There seems to be a fear of empty space. (15)
Nicoll: In all of the examples Williams shows, the original designs are overly spaced out. I agree that there is a fear of empty space because the original designs are trying so hard to fill the business card, advertisement or page, that the designs are lost. My eye got lost between the text. In the examples where Williams changed what needed to be changed, there was still empty space, but you hardly noticed it because the information was easy to find and your eye was drawn to the information rather than scanning the design for the information necessary. Williams goes on to say that everyone knows the importance of proximity and that we use it, but now we need to use it correctly. As I sit here at work, looking at my boss’s letter head that he took upon himself to redesign last week, I can’t help thinking that it looked better before. His name is in the middle, but the phone number, email address, and office address are all on different sides of the page and the states where he is admitted to practice are in the middle. Now, I know someone from California is not going to call us and see if we can handle a matter in San Diego. It seems that the contact information was better off in the middle because that is where his name is and that is where people are going to look first. The empty space on the side of the letter head didn’t matter because it was unnoticeable with the original placement of the information.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Blog #1
Gee: On one hand, the theory of learning in good video games fits well, for example, with the best sorts of science instruction in schools today. Such instruction stresses strategic thinking and problem solving, often collaboratively. On the other hand, this sort of science instruction is rare and getting rarer as testing and skill-and-drill retake our schools. (4)
Nicoll: Gee is saying that, in the absence of the teacher who wishes to teach their students to actually learn the material for their own personal knowledge, and not just for a certain grade, video games could offer a solution. Gee goes on to say that once a player beats a certain level, the game becomes harder because it is assumed that the player is forearmed with the knowledge of how to overcome the obstacles (p. 34). In the modern classroom setting, teachers are judged by the grades their students receive on standardized tests. Therefore, the teacher begins to teach only what will be on the test. However, once the test is over, the student looses that knowledge because the test is, in fact, over. Gee seems to be suggesting, that since, students seem to be becoming more interested in playing video games, why not let them. If video games are going to help the students’ retention skills and help them to see the bigger picture, then what is the harm of them? The student certainly isn’t going to receive this benefit from the “skill- and- drill” classroom.
Gee: Learners need to be able to engage is words, interactions, and actions that allow them to take on the identity of a “scientist.” But what does this mean? (55)
Nicoll: I agree that video games teach and even promote the “thinking outside the box” mentality that seems to be lacking in today’s classroom. However, to me, Gee seems to be saying that the actual hands- on portions of learning are more important than what the teacher is saying. I feel that the student cannot participate in the practical portion of the class if they cannot grasp what the teacher is saying in the theory portion of class. I agree that the lab section of a chemistry class is important because it allows the student to see that what they are learning isn’t simply speculation, but if they are going to be able to fully participate in the lab, then they must have, at the very least, some knowledge of the chemicals they are using. Trial and error is a useful teacher but if you don’t know where to begin your trial, then you can’t learn productively.
Sorcinelli and Elbow: When students do high stakes writing they often struggle in nonproductive ways and produce terrible tangled prose. When they do low stakes writing, their prose is usually livelier, clearer and more natural- often more interesting- in spite of any carelessness and mistakes. (7)
Nicoll: This seems to go hand in hand with what Gee is saying. Peter Elbow says that low stakes writing encourages individual and independent thought because there is no grade riding on it and therefore, the student is easier able to express themselves. Gee was suggesting that video games provide the same opportunity. Video games allow the gamer to express themselves through the creation of their character. Low stakes writing allows the writer to express themselves without judgment. This allows the writer to say what they want to say and not regurgitate what they think the reader wants to hear for a good grade. Low stakes writing is a way to get away from the “teach for the test” thinking because it is a way of getting the student to learn independently.
Nicoll: Gee is saying that, in the absence of the teacher who wishes to teach their students to actually learn the material for their own personal knowledge, and not just for a certain grade, video games could offer a solution. Gee goes on to say that once a player beats a certain level, the game becomes harder because it is assumed that the player is forearmed with the knowledge of how to overcome the obstacles (p. 34). In the modern classroom setting, teachers are judged by the grades their students receive on standardized tests. Therefore, the teacher begins to teach only what will be on the test. However, once the test is over, the student looses that knowledge because the test is, in fact, over. Gee seems to be suggesting, that since, students seem to be becoming more interested in playing video games, why not let them. If video games are going to help the students’ retention skills and help them to see the bigger picture, then what is the harm of them? The student certainly isn’t going to receive this benefit from the “skill- and- drill” classroom.
Gee: Learners need to be able to engage is words, interactions, and actions that allow them to take on the identity of a “scientist.” But what does this mean? (55)
Nicoll: I agree that video games teach and even promote the “thinking outside the box” mentality that seems to be lacking in today’s classroom. However, to me, Gee seems to be saying that the actual hands- on portions of learning are more important than what the teacher is saying. I feel that the student cannot participate in the practical portion of the class if they cannot grasp what the teacher is saying in the theory portion of class. I agree that the lab section of a chemistry class is important because it allows the student to see that what they are learning isn’t simply speculation, but if they are going to be able to fully participate in the lab, then they must have, at the very least, some knowledge of the chemicals they are using. Trial and error is a useful teacher but if you don’t know where to begin your trial, then you can’t learn productively.
Sorcinelli and Elbow: When students do high stakes writing they often struggle in nonproductive ways and produce terrible tangled prose. When they do low stakes writing, their prose is usually livelier, clearer and more natural- often more interesting- in spite of any carelessness and mistakes. (7)
Nicoll: This seems to go hand in hand with what Gee is saying. Peter Elbow says that low stakes writing encourages individual and independent thought because there is no grade riding on it and therefore, the student is easier able to express themselves. Gee was suggesting that video games provide the same opportunity. Video games allow the gamer to express themselves through the creation of their character. Low stakes writing allows the writer to express themselves without judgment. This allows the writer to say what they want to say and not regurgitate what they think the reader wants to hear for a good grade. Low stakes writing is a way to get away from the “teach for the test” thinking because it is a way of getting the student to learn independently.
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