Mash-up Learning theories: Sandbox Educational Gaming.

Welcome to Learning Theory Mash-Up

The goal of this post is to describe an assignment where we were tasked to develop a mash-up learning theory. This was extremely challenging. For starters every learning theory at a quick glance seemed right for my cause. I wanted to focus on different learning theories as a start or base to a mash-up gaming theory for education.  The problem was I had no idea where to start. My final product came to me like most ideas do. It came in that moment when you are trying to go to sleep except your mind won’t let you. You flip through your workday and other life events like a book as you try to force yourself to power down. Flipping through my mind was this assignment. I started to slowly piece together what I wanted to write about. 

The first thought I had was from a personal experience as a martial artist and martial arts Instructor. I remember being brand new to the karate class I attended as a child. You had to complete ten introductory classes in order to receive a white belt. I began drawing similarities as I thought about taking and teaching these classes. The classes detailed manners, expectations , and towards the end of the ten classes basic martial arts moves. As I thought about teaching these classes, I realized they are strikingly similar to a game tutorial. Furthermore, they are also similar to the beginning of new lesson plans teachers create. The more I drew from teaching martial arts the more my mash-up theory evolved. 

 In martial arts you receive stripes on your belt for knowing and performing Katas. A Kata is a traditional mix of movements and strikes that were used to practice while pretending to fight hundreds of individual enemies. We also used Katas as a test of ability. The beginning Katas required students to perform very basic movements. The student would perform their Kata for the instructor and if their movements, stance and strikes were correct and they remembered the entire thing they would be rewarded stripes on their belt. Their ability to demonstrate this proved the student was on track and progressing. The student was then rewarded with a stripe and could begin studying the next harder Kata. As I was remembering this I thought back to progressing through easier Katas and then being tasked with performing technical and difficult katas the higher in rank we climbed.  To me this was a great start for what learning theories I wanted to include in my personal gamifying theory.  I decided that for these early martial arts moments; individual constructivism, elaboration theory, and Montessori education blended seamlessly to what traditional martial arts teachers were doing for centuries. While I didn’t know it at the time, my instructor took the learning theory one step further during our brown belt tests. While individual Katas were difficult enough, in order to obtain the rank of 1st degree brown belt,(the last rank before qualifying for the black belt test) you had to perform partnered Kata. This was were you and another student had to perform in sync the highest ranking Kata a student can know before becoming a black belt.  What learning style within constructivism does this closely resemble?  The answer in my mind was social constructivism. Learning this Kata as an individual was a completely separate beast then learning and performing it with someone else. Adding a second person forced the student to look at learning the Kata in a different way, one that was more technically and physically sound. Technique became the highest form of expression when performing a kata with a second, third or fourth person trying to flow as one. You learned from the other students and developed a deep understanding behind the reasons for every movement. Like social constructivism the key to being successful in this was building meaning from multiple perspectives.  Below are how far some martial arts can evolve from a beginning Kata to a Kata that is free form built by experience gained:

The first video is of a traditional form performed by Rudy Reynon.

The second video is of the same student performing a creative form. Notice how he has taken the tradition of everything he has learned and turned it into the ultimate form of creative expression.

This was powerful imagery to me, as I came to an even more powerful realization.  Martial arts maybe one of the oldest forms of teaching to use a pure form of gamification. The experience system, learning styles, and reward systems of belts and stripes gamify perfectly. Even further, in the days of feudal japan and the beginning of martial arts as a career choice instructors would require students to travel on quests. Quests would be to learn from other master’s in far away journeys or take a spiritual quest into the wilderness for clarity and understanding of deeper martial arts philosophies. In my opinion as a new student of gamifying education, martial arts may have revealed this powerful learning style centuries ago. These three theories built the foundation for my own mash-up but I wanted something to draw all the theories together. This inspiration came from open world games and in martial arts the ability to create and make up your own form of Kata as a black belt(as seen above with Rudy’s creative form).  Made up black belt forms in our system took basic moves and turned them into the most extreme representation of what the body is capable of.  To me being able to make up your own form was a way to prove you had mastery understanding of the art you were practicing. It reminded me of open world games towards the end where you’ve learned all the little details to the game you could now branch out with full access to the map and abilities to create your own fun.  This is where I’ve come up with “Sandbox Educational Gaming” or S.E.G (all good theories should have equally award winning acronyms haha)

Now that you know where my inspiration came from for this mashup I plan to detail more about the pre-existing learning theories I am drawing from. First, the over arching theory behind S.E.G. is freedom. Freedom set within certain limits, that will not seem to exists from the learners perspective only from a course design aspect. This lead me to Maria Montessori.  Montessori education is an educational approach developed by Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori and characterized by an emphasis on independence, freedom within limits, and respect for a child’s natural psychological, physical, and social development.(wikipedia)

The freedom held within this approach made sense to fit in with my “sandbox” style creation. The adaptation of sensory importance could be key to represent engaging the student. Gaming attacks your senses to create immersion, often players experience being whisked away into the world they are playing  much like a movie enables you to forget you are watching actors read lines and scripts. The outcome is a sense of involvement where a fictitious character like Rocky Balboa can engross the audience and give them chills with his on screen victory. That sensory overload is heightened in video games by the sense of control players feel. In my educational game that sense of control will be one of the many senses I would plan to attack in order for full engagement.  The power of sensory engagement is best described by Montessori herself “Helen Keller is a marvelous example of the phenomenon common to all human beings: the possibility of the liberation of the imprisoned spirit of man by the education of the senses.”(Montessori 1965)

With my overarching theme of freedom set, I then ventured out to define how the player will define his or her role as a learner in this new mashup theory. For this, I followed authors of the textbook Instructional Design by Patricia L. Smith and Tillman J. Ragan and their definition of Social and Individual Constructivism.”In social constructivism: the key assumptions are learning is collaborative with meaning negotiated from multiple perspectives. Individual constructivism: The Key assumptions of individual constructivism are: knowledge is constructed from experience, learning results from a personal interpretation of knowledge, and learning is an active process in which meaning is developed on the basis of experience”(Smith & Ragan, 2005)

For the final piece of Sandbox Educational Gaming I focused on a design theory that would lead the player in the learning process. I choose Elaboration Theory by Charles Reigeluth. Reigeluth says”Elaboration Theory: is an instructional design theory that argues that content to be learned should be organized from simple to complex order, while providing a meaningful context in which subsequent ideas can be integrated”.

For more information, see:

• Reigeluth, C. (1987). Lesson blueprints based upon the elaboration theory of instruction. In C. Reigeluth (ed.), Instructional Design Theories in Action. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum Associates.
• Reigeluth, C. (1992). Elaborating the elaboration theory. Educational Technology Research & Development, 40(3), 80-86.
• Reigeluth, C.M. (1999). The elaboration theory: Guidance for scope and sequence decisions. In C.M. Reigeluth (Ed.), Instructional-Design Theories and Models: A New Paradigm of Instructional Theory. (Volume II). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc.
  

I have taken the approach to mash-up a learning theory based on these four theories. These introduce us to learning  through a build up from simple to complex, alone, and together. We also can attack the elaboration theory even further within the social context of learning through multiple perspectives. Sandbox Educational Gaming can be played as a single player or multiplayer experience. The game itself is presented like most video games. The beginning stages or worlds are fairly easy and focus on introducing you to the game world slowly. As you move on as a learner and player the gaming world or lessons begin to open up and vary in complexity. These stages are  testing the skills you’ve developed in the previous chapters.  The final stage of the game is a complete unlock to an open world sandbox where you are free to create your own reflection and context to the ideas you learned throughout the game. This is where you “build” your own game(like building your own kata) within the game, or your own lesson within the lesson. Students will have to draw their own parallel from all of the previous elements in order to unlock the sandbox map of the world to be free to play in. The multiplayer co-op levels will be specific quests and missions along the way to help build your foundation in order to move on in the game. If you look carefully you’ll see my idea is to build the elaboration theory right into the game itself. In my mind Montessori’s freedom and Elaboration theory represents the game. 

The sandbox game theory approach suggests that learners do best when given a brief introduction and tutorial then are left alone to work it out or play it out.  It also suggests that while working alone is important there are certain aspects to learning that require a social component. Ultimately the complexity in learning must increase the more comfortable the learner becomes with the material. The ultimate conclusion is how the learner creates his or her own context at the end.

Before I pose some questions and concerns for you to answer, lets walk through S.E.G. visually. 

The tutorial stages of learning example for S.E.G:

 The visual for single player experiences example:

From a game design and education design standpoint the campaign can be the main lesson plan for example the campaign could introduce the slowly students to the concept of supply and demand or microeconomics and eventually in the later levels lead to Macroeconomic theories. In the picture scenarios and boot camp could be tutorial phases or refresher courses on theories. 

Visual Examples of Co-op in S.E.G:

Finally the sandbox for a true test of complete understanding and test of creation from theory:

Here is my overall visual for the entire theory and process:

Questions and concerns:

How can this theory be put to practical use in the classroom?

Is there too much freedom to this theory ?

How can we manage the earlier levels to be a complete introduction for better success in the later levels.?

REFERENCE

Montessori, M. (1965). Dr. Montessori's own handbook. Random House Digital, Inc.

Reigeluth, C. M., & Stein, R. (1983). Elaboration theory. Instructional-design theories and models: An overview of their current status, 335-381.

 
Smith, P., & Ragan, T. (2005). Instructional design. (3rd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.