Grace's DigiRhets: How Rhetoric Through Videogames Helps Students Learn Better In Classrooms

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.”

(Gee Pg. 122). A videogame’s ability to customize to the level of the player and provide individual assistance at his own pace is crucial to the cognitive progression of the student. Each level of the videogame adapts to each player’s needs. This is key as to why videogames are great in classrooms. A videogame can provide the player the individual help needed, when it can prove to be more difficult for a teacher to divvy up her attention to each student accordingly.

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.