Hello, all! This week for my Digital and Social Media class we have to play a game! Sounds like a weird/fun assignment, right!? I agree, it was fun, and it does have applications to what we are discussing in the class. We were to play the game Kingdom Rush and use our experience to relate it to learning. Here is a little bit of my experience with this game:
I started play Tuesday night after class, and was really excited to start this game. I didn't really know what it was all about or what we would have to do in the game, but I figured I would figure it out as I went along. Thankfully, they have some tutorials and initial information when you first start the game, so I found those to be really helpful. As you go along during the battle, some more information pops up, too. This was helpful, too, but I also found it to be a little stressful at the same time. Some of the new enemies that it would pop up to say were being introduced weren't able to be killed by certain towers and methods that I had set up. I would have to quick build a new tower, or use some of my reinforcements or upgrades that I had to be able to defeat them. I also had difficulty figuring out how to build the towers or use the reinforcements at first. I tapped on the flag to build the tower, but then thought, "now what?" It took me a few minutes to figure out that I had to tap it again to actually build it. The same thing happened with the reinforcements. The tutorial showed me how to do it the first time, but then I had forgotten how to do it the next time I went to use them. I noticed that I would forget that I could use the reinforcements, the reign of fire, or any other upgrades and extras I had, so I would forget how to actually use them. I think this definitely relates to learning as far as having the correct tools to complete the job. We as teachers try to provide our students with as many tools as necessary to solve a problem or complete the task, but students often forget about these tools, or haven't used them often enough to remember how to use them. Sometimes it takes a bit of trial and error, too, to figure some things out. Like the tower building...nobody showed me how to do it, but after a bit of experimentation, I figured it out. This happens a lot in learning. I "failed" to build the tower or use the upgrades, but after that failure came success with the experimentation. Failing leads to learning.
I am also very competitive and a perfectionist, so as I was playing, I wanted to get those 3 stars on every level. I had the sound of the game off, but I left the vibration on so it would vibrate whenever one of the enemies had made it past the line. When I felt this vibration, I felt let down. I knew letting one or two go would be ok, but if I felt any more, I would either start that level over, or I wouldn't have the drive to complete the level at my best because I knew I would want to do it over to get the 3 stars. When talking about learning, the vibration is kind of like a formative assessment. If no vibration is felt, I knew I was doing ok. I sometimes wasn't able to watch the line to see if any of them were going through because I was looking at another part of the map to build a tower or get some reinforcement to a certain area because there were so many enemies. That vibration helped to know how I was performing. A lot of times, students will give up when too much "vibration" or negative feedback is given, which is kind of what I did when I would lose my drive to do my best, but ultimately I ended up doing it over to do better. We need to encourage our students that the feedback is meant to help them and to not give up because of a "poor" performance, but to keep trying! The stars can also be equated to grades. The three stars is the highest, which would equate to an A. Some people are satisfied with 1 or 2 stars and just passing the level (a B or C to pass the class), but, like I said, I'm a perfectionist so I wanted that third star, or that "A". If I didn't get the three stars right away, I would replay the level and change my strategy so that I wouldn't let any enemies through that gate. This could be thought of as retaking a test. I didn't do as well as I wanted to, but I learned from my first experience and did something different and better on my second try.
I talked about gaming and "flow" in my last post, and I can say that I was in flow for at least the first time that I played the game. I was so interested in how the game was played and figuring out the strategy part of it that I looked up at the clock and over an hour had already passed and it was time for me to go to bed! However, after the first experience with the game, I didn't really experience flow. It got to be a little difficult for me, and I would get frustrated because I couldn't figure out how to stop some of the enemies. When I got frustrated, I had to put the phone down and try again later. I was stuck on one level for quite some time, and after our conversation about looking for help last week, I ended up looking for advice online. I even asked some of my gamer students, but they haven't played this game before so they were no help haha. I usually try not to search for help in games, but if I'm stuck on something for a while, I want to know how to get past it. I think this relates to learning as well. I don't really see it as "cheating" as more of getting help. I encourage my students to go out and find tutorials on how to solve certain problems if they are not understanding how I am teaching it. I also know that the answers from some of the worksheets that I use are also online. I don't mind them looking up the answers, as long as they show the work on how to get to that answer and can demonstrate they know how to do it. I think this is the same for gaming. I looked up how to do it, but ultimately still had to put that into practice and do it myself.
Learning something new always takes time. Most of the time, it takes a lot of hard work, dedication, and failing. This is what happened to me during this gaming experience. I failed a lot and had to have the dedication not to give up and keep trying. Like I said in my very first blog post, I'm trying to instill this type of growth mindset in my students more this year. Even though they might not get the results they wanted the first time, they still need to keep trying and work hard to figure out what to do in order to get the results they want. I think I might even tell my students about my gaming experience and talk to them about how they think gaming relates to learning. There are many parallels, and if they can fail and keep going in a game situation, they can do the same thing in the classroom!
Are any of you gamers? If so, have you ever thought of how gaming relates to learning? I'd love to hear your thoughts!
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