One Way Schools Could Develop Creative Thinkers!

It just might be time for K-12 education to make video games a fundamental part of the curricula.

Everywhere we turn these days we hear the same thing.

Our students need things we don’t teach and that our school structures do not allow for a focus on learning and thus all too often sustain the current social hierarchy. Some would insist that our schools are crushing every ounce of creativity from our young (see accompanying video).

In her article on “The Things We Don’t Teach,” Jenifer Fox quotes extensively from the publication “Tough Choices or Tough Times (pdf),” a document calling for the development of youngsters who are creative and innovative. The report further stresses the need for developing adaptable and cooperative workers who will be “constantly organizing and reorganizing in a never-ending array of teams.”

Fox hammers the current school culture:

“In an age when most jobs require intuitive decision-making, where more mental activities replace physical ones, traditional instruction and assessment is ineffective (i.e. the teacher demonstrates how to do something and the student who repeats the performance best receives a high grade). In the 21st century workplace, a new premium is placed on creative problem solving, teamwork and collaboration. Our schools will “bridge” students into the workforce when they begin to focus on developing student strengths and teach students how to bring those strengths to the teams they work on.

Using Video Games to Teach

We have noted on many occasions that one of the most intriguing options for the future of education is the use of video games to teach higher order thinking skills. We have offered our Eleven Video Games to Unlock Your Inner Genious as well as a suggestion as to how gaming behavior could be used to instruct students on the all-important scientific method.

To date we have read little about public K-12 education doing anything in the way of organizing their curricula around this idea and/or implementing the concept in the classroom in a meaningful way. But as always, higher education appears to be the first to grasp the idea and is at least seeing the option as a viable elective.

University of Florida students in the honors program now have just such an option. The video game “StarCraft” is used to teach critical thinking, problem solving and resource management skills in the online course IDS2935, “21st Century Skills in StarCraft.” Nate Poling, the UF doctoral student teaching the class, told news reporters that the game is a tool and a resource, that the game is an anchor in the same way that other courses might use a textbook to reinforce specific concepts. Poling believes that ultimately games can be a great teaching tool and cites his early infatuation with the popular Apple “Oregon Trail” option often made available to students during free time in elementary school.

For those unfamiliar with the game, “StarCraft” is a strategy game in which as many as eight players can compete online. Poling selected the game because it reinforces lessons related to balancing resources and the managing of risks, two skills important to anyone starting a business.

As homework the students are required to play the game for as many as two hours each week. Ironically, grading comes from typical educational formats – students must keep a log, write papers and do a final presentation.

It’s just that everything centers upon the game: the log documents student attempts to play the game while the papers focus on the decisions students made while playing. But the one way that contrasts with traditional educational practices is that grading will not be correlated with student skills playing the game.

Of course, if one peruses the Internet, the web is loaded with specific references to this very course with the vast majority offering a “you must be kidding” tone. While the gaming community attempts to keep a straight face even as they use the story as a selling point, independent sites seem to focus on the “ha ha” concept, the proverbial, I too want to earn a bachelor’s degree in Starcraft.

But we have heard tell that the University of California at Berkeley began using “StarCraft” in the classroom last year while the puzzle video game “Portal” is among required material this fall for freshmen at Wabash College in Indiana.

Video Games as an Assessment Tool

It will no doubt take some time for the skeptics to be won over but it is interesting to note that the concept of stealth assessments is taking hold and here again video games could offer a key component to making the concept work. Stealth assessment recognizes that complications from test anxiety can make it difficult to capture specific abilities. In addition, traditional testing formats can’t help but bring in outside factors based on students existing knowledge or lack of specific knowledge in regards to a topic.

So as educators and independent assessors seek ways to measure skills like critical thinking, creativity, and persistence, new ways of testing those traits are developing. One such way is to allow students to immerse themselves in a fun activity and then watch how they behave.

Allowing a small group to play a video game reduces test anxiety even as it creates a setting where an observer can watch students interacting as they solve a complex task. Researchers insist that a lot of important stuff happens when individuals play video games.

Because every aspect of what transpires allows an educator to observe how students process specific tasks, such an option is being considered a possible method for assessing an individual’s higher order thinking skill level as well as a person’s ability to function as part of a team.

This of course represents yet another step in the video game evolution – in the earlier arena discussed the game is used to supplement classroom instruction and thus help develop higher order thinking skills. In the second instance of stealth assessments, video games are utilized as a method for assessing what a student has acquired for skills.

The result is that video games could actually form that final critical educational bridge, the one that blurs the distinction between learning and assessment.

Time Has Come

In sum total, it is clear that at this time our schools are falling short in regards to developing the next generation of creative thinkers. No doubt, the time has come for new and innovative teaching options be explored.

But the radical nature of using video games as teaching and assessment tools doesn’t appear likely to fly in public education where the traditionalists are convinced that education involving video games has to be devoid of rigor.

So it will likely fall on some entrepreneur convincing some board to allow a new charter school to be created that focuses on developing 21st century skills. Imagine a school where reading, writing and arithmetic are integrated with technology, the world wide web and video gaming.

Of course, some basic skills will never change – the ability to read and write and think logically all remain important elements in any school. But at the same time, our future is dependent on developing yet another set of core skills centered upon the world wide web: the ability to research, think creatively and collaboratively problem solve.

The first set of entrepreneurs who can redesign schools around this theme and then contrast it with the limitations of traditional educational formats are going to make themselves a whole lot of money.

Because I have no doubt that video games and virtual worlds represent the future of learning.