How Rhetoric Through Videogames Helps Students
Learn Better In Classrooms
"Videogames are empowering and educating today’s youth by harnessing their excitement for the medium.” -Michael D. Gallagher, president of Entertainment Software Association
Videogames have a bad wrap. Parents are
often times criticizing children for spending too much time with their videogame
console then their homework, rationalizing that videogames are deteriorating
their minds and making them lazy. Welcome to 2015. Here, we encourage videogame
interaction, and especially in educational settings. Today, it’s near
impossible for children not to be bombarded with multiple modes in their
everyday lives. Since students are already submerged in a culture of various
technologies, educators benefit from adapting their classrooms to the way
students see their every day worlds already. One way to effectively do so is
through implementing videogames in the classroom.
Rhetoric used carefully and deliberately
in the classroom through the use of videogames makes learning a more effective
process for students. Through the adaptation of individual learning needs while
engaging multiple means of problem solving, their real world applications, and
their lowered the consequences of failure, videogames can bring to the table
brilliant new educational properties that barely existed before. Videogames
engage and challenge the student, and creates a realm where creativity is
encouraged and where many different ways of “winning” is acceptable.
Educators have come to the brash
realization that children are spending more time with their videogame console
than their homework. Sequentially, educational researchers are trying to close
the engagement gap between what kids do in the classroom and outside of the
classroom. So what is it about videogames that lure children in? Educators are
asking this question to secure answers for the future of education. SimCityEdu,
one of the many educational videogames implemented in classrooms today, is on
its way to reinventing classroom learning. Through the rhetorical allure of
videogames, educators may be able to revive classroom learning.
Technology is rapidly expanding, and
education is struggling to keep up. The “old-school” means of teaching a child
is now unfeasible, as almost every mode encompassing the child’s practical
world is in one form or another, digital. The most affective way to grab a
child’s attention is to present him/her with relevant information that is
applicable to their world. Many instructors are catching on to this phenomenon,
implementing various rhetorical digital mediums in their classroom, with videogames
being a top pick among teachers.
Rhetoric
Through Videogames: Customizes the Experience For Each Player
Videogames
provide students with the opportunity to be interactive with their work,
promotes intellectual exploration, is collaborative, captures their interest in
the medium, all while providing customized, individual assistance to each
student. Educational videogames have many positive effects in the learning
environment, but most importantly, they have the ability to attract the
interest and involvement of students.
Innately,
videogames customize to each learner’s specific needs. In James Paul Gee’s What Videogames Have to Teach Us About
Learning and Literacy, he says, “A good videogame adapts to the level of
the player, rewards different players differently (but rewards them all), and
often stays at the edge of the players regime of competence.”
In
a classroom, where there is only one teacher and multiple students who may need
special attention, videogames make it easier to offer multiple students the
individual help that they need. Gee says that videogames offer kids the ability
to learn at their own pace with different answers to problems and adapting to
each players the individual learning needs/style. According to the huffingtonpost.com, “Seventy-eight percent of teachers in a
national survey said that digital games improved low-performing students'
mastery of curricular content and skills (math, language arts, etc.), and 71
percent said they improved mastery of extra-curricular skills (technology,
communication, critical thinking, etc.). Videogames not only motivate
low-performing students to attend class, but also help them pay attention and
make stronger efforts to succeed.” In a classroom, it makes it difficult for a
teacher to spend the extra time helping struggling students, but videogames
allow for a customized learning experience at different levels per student’s
individual learning needs.
Not only do videogames provide
personalized assistance, some like SimsCityEdu also provides the teacher with a
report of each student’s progress. The game is able to track “Every time a student is hovering a mouse over a specific object, every
time they are clicking on something, every choice, decision and action they
make within the game to be able to solve that problem,” says Jessica
Lindl, General Manager of GlassLab. Through the game’s ability to track
progress and its ability to provide each student with personalized help,
videogames in classrooms can improve interest in struggling and non-struggling
students, as well as catch a comprehensive problem at the first sight of it.
Videogames create interest in the classroom.
They allow for students to be more engaged and excited about what they are
learning by "balancing gameplay enjoyment with an appropriate level of
challenge. Games have the ability to keep players in their own unique optimally
challenging and engaging zone for learning," wrote Jan Plass, an NYU Professor of digital media and learning sciences
(www.huffingtonpost.com).
Rhetoric
Through Videogames: Interactive and Engaging
The
interactive qualities of videogames detract from the congested, lecture-style
classroom learning, where students who struggle with engaging in classrooms may
find hard to learn. Videogames offer multiple students individual assistance at
a necessary pace, have the ability to customize to the individual’s specific
learning needs, while rewarding the player for discovering answers on their
own, which makes videogames in
classrooms great a great medium for any student.
The
interactive properties of videogames grab the student’s attention and interest
in a way that non-interactive busy work does not, therefore making videogames
in the classroom a very rhetorical and persuasive device for students. In
today’s hyper-stimulating world, children find passive learning to be more
difficult, as it is something they aren’t normal accustomed to. Multi-tasking
has become so ingrained in our society that a passive learning environment is
going to hinder the child more so than help, as their minds will be wondering
to other avenues to keep awake and stimulated. Instead of teaching students to
sit still and do well on tests, instructors can embrace the active tenancies of
students rather than try to suppress them. Interactivity provides a space where
students can be active thinkers. In place of providing answers for the
students, videogames empower the student to discover the answer on his or her
own. Interactivity provides students the opportunity to be engaged in learning
and focused on the task at hand.
Rhetoric
Through Videogames: Allows For the Self Discovery of Answers
SimCityEdu, developed in part by
GlassLabs in conjunction with EA Games, who have developed various big names in
games such as Madden NFL, The Sims and Medal of Honor, is a game created
specifically for middle to high school aged students. SimCityEdu focus on math,
science, and literacy. The most powerful aspect of video games as a learning
mechanism is that video games allow students to discover answers to problems on
their own without the distraction of a hovering teacher. Videogames in
classrooms take away from the congested, lecture-style classroom learning,
where students who have trouble engaging in classrooms find hard to learn, to a
self-taught form of learning. One middle-school child who tried SimCityEdu in
her classroom said, “Usually teachers, principals or parents are in charge—at
our age, finally, being in charge is kind of cool.” Videogames in classrooms
are rhetorically sound in that they allow the child to actively take control of
his or her learning. Empowering a child is one of the most affective ways to
help them learn.
Rhetoric
Through Videogames: Reward Students For Playing and Lowers the Consequences of
Failure
Videogames
reward the player for discovering new routes and ideas, a concept that is not
often implemented in classrooms. However, this sort of risk/reward is necessary
for when levels of the videogame become more difficult and where the
“think-for-yourself” model of problem solving comes in handy—a critical skill
to possess in real-world scenarios. Instead of the red-pen approach that is
often used in classrooms that tends to deter a child from wanting or trying to
learn, videogames promote a positive learning experience where multiple “right
answers” can be explored and where a “wrong” answer isn’t necessarily a bad
thing.
One of Gee’s examples used to iterate
the concept of risk/reward in videogames was that of the videogame, Tomb Raider.
The main character in this game is Laura Croft. He wrote that although the
player/Laura Croft was given specific directions from an elder in the game not
to veer off the path, rewards for doing so were hidden close by. The
risk/reward mechanism that is built into the videogame is necessary for when
levels progress to more difficult tasks where this sort of think-for-yourself,
problem solving comes in handy. This instills in the player a positive
association with discovering answers for himself not only in the videogame, but
in real world scenarios, as well.
Videogames encourage the player by
providing multiple ways for discovering success at their own skill level. They
encourage players to “take risks explore and find new things” (Gee 216). Instead of reprimanding a
student for veering off the path, encouraging students to seek answers on their
own creates a more positive environment that produces better learning. In
addition, students tend to want to keep trying until they finally succeed at a
level. “‘Replaying a level [has been] very common as students want to improve
and earn higher scores,’” says gamesandlearning.org. “In video
games, losing is not losing, and the point is not winning easily or judging
yourself a failure. In video games, hard is not bad and easy is not good,”
Explains Gee (Pg. 174). Success for students would be much greater upon the
encouragement of student’s work, instead of the constant reprimanding that
seems to dominate today’s classrooms. Because videogames don’t reprimand the
child for trying and losing, a student is more apt to attempt a different
approach to the level than the last time he played. If instructors can follow
this model in their classrooms, children will find that learning doesn’t have
to be a chore, and that they can discover answers to problems that are unique
to their learning style.
A good videogame provides multiple means
of problem solving. Videogames create a positive space where a student can be
confident in his pursuit of answers, rather than deterring him from wanting to
try. Implementing a risk/reward, explorative setting in the classroom that
provides constructive help will reap more benefits for the student. Rather than
the negative red-pen approach, videogames encourage the player in providing
multiple ways for discovering success at their own level.
Rhetoric
Through Videogames: Links to Real World Applications
It is difficult to help students to see
the real world applications of math, science and language learning in the
classroom. Kids, today, have calculators, spell check and Google for these
things. So, why then do they need to learn a bunch of “pointless” information?
Although students can’t see the importance, it doesn’t make learning the
information any less valuable. Implementing educational videogames in a
classroom setting provides a medium where students don’t realize they are
learning math, science, reasoning or language, they just are.
Studies have shown that when a child
knows that he or she can employ his knowledge to specific life circumstances
then he is will be able to actually retain
and apply this knowledge in his future. Consequentially, when a child
learns something in a videogame, he doesn’t realize that he is learning real
world skills, that what he is doing is not just class work, but rather having “fun,”
he is that much more likely to be invested and interested in what he is doing.
Videogames provide the opportunity to
make important material interesting as well as relevant for students. Situated
meanings, or meanings that are associated with words or images in the real
world, are crucial to a student’s learning and retainment of information. If a
student cannot associate what is learned with something tactile or applicable,
then the information that was “learned” will then disappear after it is no
longer in use. (Gee pg 105) Gee says, “This is why so many school children,
even ones who are good at school, can pass tests but still cannot apply their
knowledge to real world problem solving.” (pg. 105). Videogames bridge the gap
between textbook and “real world” information, something that can make a world
of difference in a student’s education.
SimCityEDU currently
has six missions, all related to the theme of managing energy and environmental
issues in an urban setting, all practical issues in today’s world.
Gamesandlearning.org says, “Parents need to know that SimCityEDU: Pollution Challenge! puts
teens in the role of a mayor whose tasks include a variety of real-world
environmental and pollution challenges. Players solve problems by reading
textual descriptions of an environmental issue and applying correct textual
answers. Players also engage with causal loop diagramming and large-scale city
planning in their virtual towns.” Videogames provide the opportunity to make
important material interesting as well as relevant for students, as well as
provide a means where a student wants to learn.
In addition, videogames enable students
to place themselves in the shoes of a character or immerse themselves in a
place or culture that they are learning about in the classroom. With a plot set
up like SimsCityEdu, students are given a feeling of empowerment that is
otherwise nonexistent in classrooms. This creates empathy between the player
and the town’s people, and an innate desire to help them, ultimately creating a
space where the child is not only interested in the subject matter, but
invested, as well. In a review of SimsCityEdu, one child mentioned that he
liked the game because he felt like people were depending on him to find an
answer. Placing a student in this sort of real world scenario allows him to see
education as more than numbers, facts and exams. This type of interactive
experience makes students more excited about the material and supports
long-term retention. “GlassLab product manager Liz Kline says she’s encouraged
by students’ engagement. In an informal survey of 600 students, ‘almost all identified
their experience as fun or very fun,’ she says (www.gamesandlearning.org). Videogames in the classroom close the
engagement gap between what kids do in the classroom and outside of the
classroom by harnessing real world experiences and applications.
To
Conclude:
Rhetoric used carefully and deliberately
in the classroom through the use of videogames makes learning a more effective
process for students. Videogames bring to the table brilliant new educational
properties that barely existed before the age of multiple modalities. The interactive properties of videogames challenge the
student while stimulating interest. Videogames encourage the active discovery
of answers at the individual level, as well as an overall more prosperous
environment for a student to thrive within. Videogames promote an environment
where teachers act as mentors instead of disciplinarians, ultimately creating a
happy, positive environment that promotes intellectual exploration.
Works
Cited:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kara-loo/7-ways-video-games-help_b_6084990.html
Gee, James Paul. What
Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6IsDmManq8 Ted x-
learning (re)imagined
“getting away from subjects and making topics and problems the focal
point”
