Monday Summary: Video Games and Stealth Assessment-Sneaky Teachers

I just read the neatest little article.  Anyone reading bits of my blog knows I’m a critical thinking geek.  I also happen to love adventure video games.  They’re really great at developing critical thinking skills.  I’m even thinking of ways to incorporate some of my favorites from BigFish Games into information literacy courses as a way to encourage critical thinking skills in fun ways.  However, I never thought of the sneaky uses detailed in this article.

Article: Kaya, Travis. (2010). “A ‘Stealth Assessment’ Turns to Video Games to Measure Thinking Skills.” Chronicle of Higher Education, 57(12).  A13. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Kaya gets Valerie Shute (here’s her webpage), an associate professor of educational psychology at Florida State University, to discuss stealth assessment.  In order to test students’ thinking skills, among other things, without inducing test anxiety, Shute has utilized video games.  Students already grow up playing games.  They’re enjoyable and can reduce anxiety rather than causing it.  It also helps that video games can be used in the classroom without the students realizing they’re being tested.  It conveys more realistic results to professors. 

Shute sees stealth assessment as a way of modernizing teaching for groups of all ages.  Video games can draw students by increasing the desire of a student to participate.  It increases the relevance of some course projects by modernizing the instruction and gaining the students interest.

A couple of games in the article interested me right away. 

Shute designed a computer game (Smithtown) for undergraduates several years back.  It helped them learn microeconomics.  Think about that.  A game for learning microeconomics.  How cool is that?  Students had to alter economic factors and look at the results.  It ended up teaching important lessons about scientific inquiry.  If the students altered too many variables, they wouldn’t be able to determine the cause and effect relationship of their experiments.  Students learned to be patient, work with smaller numbers of variables, and dig out the actual cause/effect relationships. 

The second game is another game promoted for in-class use by Shute.  It was created by the University of Indiana’s Center for Research on Learning and Technology.  Taiga Park deals with ecology.  Students have to investigate the cause of a large scale fish die-off.  They get to interview witnesses and business owners and learn about basic scientific principles involved in ecological research.  It just sounds neat!

I think I may have to give Shute a hug if I ever meet her.  This is awesome stuff.  I love the twenty-first century.  I swear when I finally get hold of a librarian position, I’m going to be pushing video games for the info lit courses.  I cannot think a better way to engage college age students and still get them learning.

Monday Summary: Riddles and Computer Games (1995)

Yes, this is an older article.  I still kind of, sort of, remember 1995.  Dr. John H. Doolittle published the following article way back then:

Doolittle, John H. “Using Riddles and Interactive Computer Games to teach Problem-Solving Skills.”  Teaching of Psychology.  22.1 (1995):  33-36. 

Doolittle’s main premise is that word tables, interactive video games, and riddles aid in the development of creative and critical thinking.  His focus is on undergraduate college students.  Students learn to think of multiple solutions to problems, instead of locking themselves into only one solution.  Along those lines, students also learn to let go of wrong answers or risk failing the task.  Students are required to think creatively because the expected answers with riddles aren’t always correct.  Flexibility in thoughts and problem solving patterns emerge.

Doolittle also points out something that should be obvious.  Those of us who read or listen to stories read aloud have more developed and active imaginations.  Movies and television can be interesting forms of entertainment but do not provide the kind of cognitive development that comes from an engaged imagination and interactive participation.

Doolittle offers some suggestions for riddles and games.  He also cautions against student frustration, which can halt the developmental process.  He closes with his empirical evidence for the effectiveness of these techniques, which is very preliminary but shows possible promise. 

So, this really is a fascinating article, and I’ll be following his citations and digging deeper for empirical evidence.  I don’t think many researchers take video games seriously as a way to encourage information literacy, creativity and critical thinking skills.  One thing that did bother me a little bit with this article was the fact that nearly half of his eighteen citations were to his own papers, books, and games he’s developed.  I can understand his reasons, but it still bothers me for some reason.  I need to track down his other resources and some more updated findings. 

This article did solidify some wonderful ideas I have for the classroom.  I have a syllabus and schedule emerging from the murky depths of my mind.  Perhaps, I will have to share these ideas with my readers. 

Am I weird or what?  I’m not employed at the moment and I’m still developing courses.  I just need some imaginary students and I’m set.  I wonder if I can get an imaginary paycheck?

Oh, look.  A link to the article!  

Critical Thinking and Video Games???

I would have loved any teacher that assigned a game for homework or as an in-class test. 

I’ve been involved in one form of gaming or another since I got a Nintendo and a Sega back in the eighties and computer games since I got my first computer back around 1993.  I didn’t have internet until a few years later (dial-up).  I’ve played all sorts of games but always find myself coming back to the puzzle and hidden object games.  Games that involve some level of problem solving ability or pattern recognition but that are still simple enough to complete in a short amount of time. 

Old school gamers might remember two of my favorites:  the original Quest for Glory and King’s Quest series.  Those were some awesome games.  I still think they’re neat games, even with the terrible graphics (by today’s standards).  Those type of games involved problem solving and puzzles.  You were sent on all sorts of minor quests in order to complete the main objective of the games.  Today, I play puzzle games and hidden object games for fun.  I usually download those from PopCap and BigFish Games online.  I also play games like Harvest Moon on the Wii.  I know that seems silly in some respects.  However, these games do involve the ability to figure out patterns and solve puzzles and riddles.  If they’re difficult enough, this forces the gamer to use at least a basic level of critical thinking skills.  Of course, I do love a nice “shoot’em up” game from time to time (one word-zombies).

See, games are a good thing.  I should see if I can find something to back this up.