Gaming the Classroom: Upending the Meanings of Work and Play

Today I had the pleasure of having Lauren Burstein visit my classroom. The visit was a pleasure for many reasons, one of the most significant being that Lauren is a former student of mine from Frisch. Lauren, who teaches English at Torah Academy of Bergen County (TABC), and I have been in contact since last year and this past summer's RealSchool Summer Sandbox, and it was on the way back from Jedcamp in Brooklyn last Sunday that we decided she should visit my classroom to see if she was interested in gaming her English class.

I had decided to game mine very recently. About two years ago, I saw John Hunter discuss his World Peace Game in a TEDTalk, and the idea to create something similar has been percolating ever since:

John Hunter is truly remarkable

I've also been intrigued over the past year by social media posts about educational gaming and inspired as well by educators such as Sarah Blattner who are proponents of it. This year seemed like the time to make my first move, so to speak, into the world of games in the classroom. 

The class I chose to game is a senior English elective at Frisch called Hot Topics. The class focuses on two main controversial issues, medical ethics and racism, and has traditionally employed different media to connect students with the issues: film, art, and various types of fictional and non-fictional works. The course's loose structure made it perfect to game.

I don't have a lot of experience playing computer games and so borrowed the set-up of the game structure more from John Hunter than from Minecraft or Angry Birds. I also decided to start small to see if the gaming methodology worked for me, and so the first thing I did was game the summer reading assignment.

The students had read about the amazing inventions and ethos of the MIT Media Lab in The Sorcerers and Their Apprentices by Frank Moss, former director of the Lab, as well as Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, which poignantly portrays the horrors of cloning. The two books lent themselves to being gamed, focused as they were on either the possibilities or the limits of technology. 

In this version of Monopoly, students replaced Broadway with the MIT Media Lab and
advanced players with innovations from the Media Lab, portrayed in Community Chest cards.
In the Community Chest card shown above, one of the Media Lab's ethos -- failing fast to learn fast --
has players move back three spaces but receive $50!

Students came up with games based on Chutes and Ladders, Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, and Uno and also invented their own games. I particularly liked one student's response to what he learned from having created his game: "I saw that there were moral consequences to people's actions." That conclusion is obviously the aim of reading a book such as Never Let Me Go, but it was much more important to me that the student realized that himself instead of being fed the line by me. Students also told me they learned a lot about the books from each other, when they planned the games and discussed quotations from the books that they'd use. They also said they had to learn how to combine the perspectives of different people in their group. Social-structed learning appeals to me greatly and is a natural outcome of kids' playing games -- or in this case, making them -- together.

To reflect on the assignment, I had students create videos about the learning experience. Here's one that includes a narrative frame, which is something important in an English class!

Once the students finished the videos, they posted on linoit.com any failure they learned from over the course of the assignment. You can see their posts here: Fail Fast to Learn Fast linoit board (Thanks to my sister Smadar Goldstein of JETS, for introducing me to linoit walls).

All in all, I felt satisfied that rich learning had taken place during the game-making unit, and I saw how much fun the kids had and how deeply engaged they were by the activity. They also told me how much they enjoyed a class where they weren't sitting down the whole time and where they had autonomy and control. As a result of all these positive outcomes, I felt ready to tackle a more complicated gaming activity, the making of a Simulated City.

The summer reading game was structured as a project-based learning (PBL) unit. I designed the assignment, set up rubrics for the game, made sure students presented to an audience, and assigned reflective pieces. For the Simulated City, I'm opting to create an inquiry-based learning (IBL) classroom. Much of the learning and project outcomes will be driven by the students, with my role being to deepen learning, guide it to more sophisticated places than the students might take it on their own, and base project outcomes on what I think the students will be most interested in. 

On the first day of the city's creation, the students and I discussed what sectors of a city they'd be interested in forming and came up with the following seven areas:

Business

Eco-friendly Fashion

Governance and Politics

Sports 

Technology

Urban Design

Waste Management

Our Urban Design team

Waste Management goes green in our city!

Students didn't have to be told to dream big;
after reading The Sorcerers and Their Apprentices
this past summer and because of their own interests,
they were already thinking of blue sky technologies!

As our curriculum takes shape, it's become clear that we need:

1) Project Goals for each week; students post their daily progress in Google Docs they've created for the class

2) A class blog where we can make the process of our work visible to the larger world

3) Presentation dates when each group can report on its research and then make proposals for the city that classmates will vote on

In order to connect the Sim City with the syllabus I'd prepared, I also asked the students to choose an ethical dilemma for their group. For example, Urban Design is debating whether the city should have housing projects, while Sports is researching performance-enhancing drugs so the class can decide if they want to allow them. Eco-Friendly Fashion is investigating sweatshop use and how to create eco-friendly and affordable clothing, while Governance is going to present legislation on abortion and gun control that the class will vote on. 

The pros and cons of performance-enhancing drugs
are presented in two books Rami is holding (and now reading!),
Enhancing Evolution and The Case against Perfection

What I loved about Lauren's visit today was that it made the students' work more authentic -- as having outside visitors tends to do. It forced the students to articulate more clearly what they've been working on and where they are headed in their research. I heard Lauren ask probing questions and push the kids to think more deeply about their topics. I could have done the same, but when it's your teacher bugging you, you might roll your eyes. The students took Lauren's thoughts and questions seriously.

Knowing Lauren was going to come also forced me to think more carefully about the expectations I have for the groups and how I see the quarter developing. While an inquiry-based learning classroom unfolds in a more free-form manner than a PBL one, I'm finding it can still have a careful design and a clear timetable and basic frame. Creating those elements has been fun.

Lauren discusses with Waste Management their ideas and research

Governance and Politics share with Lauren what they've been up to

One of the most gratifying parts of Lauren's visit was her noticing that the students seem truly engaged in their work and passionate about it. I hope so. The aim of the gaming assignment isn't only to have fun -- though joyful learning is something I always think about cultivating. It's also to have fun while being deeply immersed in work that is satisfying and challenging and that speaks to a student's passions and interests. 

One student in the Sports team actually wants to be a sports agent,
so his research on how to become one is obviously relevant to him 

 Lauren is welcome back anytime, and in the meantime, my students and I will continue our classwork play.

Additonal Resources

Traditional descriptions of "gaming the classroom" discuss ways of introducing video games into learning. Check out these articles on educational gamification:

Gaming is Changing the Classroom

Harnessing Gaming for the Classroom

Sarah Blattner recommended this book on gaming to me:

Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World

About My Work

About my work:

Interdisciplinary Studies

I began my work in interdisciplinary studies at Frisch by meeting with Torah and Nakh teachers to see where in their syllabi students would benefit from and appreciate a look into the cultures that form the backdrop of the Biblical books. The interdisciplinary units that resulted from that planning and which AVICHAI funded include:

• Paganism vs. Monotheism: A comparison of the ancient Near Eastern pagan worldview with Abraham’s monotheistic one
• Fertility and Wells: Wells as fertility symbols and Isaac’s well digging
• Jacob on the DL (disabled list): Achilles, Oedipus and the significance of leg injuries (one of my personal favorites)
• Joseph in Egypt: A comparison of Mesopotamian and Egyptian lifestyles (adapted for elementary school as well)
• God attacks Egypt: The might of the Egyptian empire and God’s response (a 2-part series)
• The Hammurabi Code and Biblical Law
• The Mishkan and Art in the Ancient World
• Ancient Military Encampments vs. the Israelite Encampment in Numbers
• Purity in the Camp: A look at Sotah and ancient adultery law
• Prophecy and Divination in the Torah and the Ancient World: Balaam and his powers
• The Power of Shema: Deuteronomy’s Message
• Solomon’s Temple vs. Temples in the Ancient Near East
• Assyrian Might in the Books of the Prophets
• Jonah, Pinocchio and the Meaning of the Foray into the Fish’s Stomach
• Palaces and Parties: The Achaemenid Court and Esther
• What Ruth Corrects in Levirate Law: A comparison of levirate law in the ancient world and its significance in the Ruth story
• Co-taught with a Nakh teacher: a three-part series on literature, art and music in Judaism; I prepared the art and most of the literature part of the sessions

Here is a link to many of my integration units: http://www.slideboom.com/my_presentations

As Chairman of the English Department, I've overseen the establishment of set standards in grammar and research in my school's four-year program; combined Honors American Literature with AP English Language in the junior year, making the course both literary and media-based; and planned, taught and continue to teach an integrated senior elective called Hot Topics, which uses literature, art, film and Judaic sources to look at medical ethics and racism today. Here is a link to the wiki page that best features the interdisciplinary and multi-media nature of the Hot Topics course:

[If you want access to any of the links to the Frisch wiki, please contact me at tikvah.wiener@gmail.com. The wiki is password-protected, but I have a guest password for educators.]

http://frisch12.wikispaces.com/Civic+Responsibility

As Coordinator of Interdisciplinary Studies, I’ve worked with each department in the school to learn how the topics in each course might fit into a theme I selected for each grade. I co-created and wrote the content for a school wiki, where each grade can interact with different topics pertaining to that grade’s theme. The grades' themes:

Freshmen: Identity
Sophomores: Exploration
Juniors: Conflict
Seniors: Integration

The wiki pages aren't divided by course, but rather by topics common to myriad classes. Freshmen, for example, under the theme of identity, can learn about the topic of leadership by studying it through the lens of their literature, history, and Tanakh classes. I co-wrote an article with Rabbi Tzvi Pittinsky about the school-wide wiki in the Lookstein Journal, Jewish Educational Leadership:  http://www.lookstein.org/online_journal.php?id=250

I also created, organized and now oversee interdisciplinary days of learning for grades 9-11, ones that pertain to each grade’s themes. The ninth grade integration day is fate and free will, the tenth grade day is censorship and book burning, and the eleventh grade day is the Holocaust. We planned the eleventh grade integration day with a school in Israel, enabling us to have a global classroom.

http://frisch.wikispaces.com/home

I grew a week-long integrated study of the Greeks into Frisch Greek week, where ninth graders focus on what the Greeks contributed to the world and learn where to draw the line between what secular cultures can give Judaism and ways in which secular environments harm our religion.

http://frisch9.wikispaces.com/Classification

In the tenth grade, I developed the Frisch Africa Encounter, a month-long study of the African continent that culminates in an evening for parents, students and teachers. As part of the month-long program, students read either The Posionwood Bible or Little Bee and complete a research project in history that they then convert into digital media for the presentation night. Students also learn about the integration of Ethiopian Jewry into Israeli society; debate what Israel should do about African refugees; repurpose discarded materials into works of art; and raise money for Innovation: Africa, an organization that uses sustainable Israeli technologies to improve life in African countries. At the evening for the Frisch community, sophomores share their exploration of African art, culture, economies, and social entrepreneurs with the school community.

http://teachingwellandgood.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-frisch-africa-encounter-december-18.html

RealSchool

The modern world needs people with a complex identity who are intellectually autonomous and prepared to cope with uncertainty; who are able to draw inferences and can control their behavior in the light of foreseen consequences, who are altruistic and enjoy doing for others, and who understand social forces and trends."

-- Robert Havighurst, 20th-century American psychologist

Last year I began RealSchool (RS), a program that advocates for and models education reform by having students engage in self-designed, collaborative, inquiry-based learning. The teams in the club are formed based on students’ interests and generally include subjects not taught in the traditional classroom. RS teams include App Making, The Arts, Fashion, Finance, Graphic Design, Health and Environment, Marketing, Religious Identity, Social Action and Entrepreneurship, Video Production and Web Design.

The club has organized events such as a student-run Yom Iyun; a pre-Shavuot program called Detox for the Decalogue; a student-run discussion series on prayer; and a day devoted to doing 26 Acts of Kindness for the 26 victims of Newtown. Club members are now involved in 

*  creating a green cookbook that will be made into an app
*  a fashion and dance show that raises awareness about ethical food and fashion, the oppression of women worldwide and female entrepreneurs
*  an education reform movement
*  a video series based on the prayer discussions the Religious Identity team is having.

RealSchool’s student-designed website: http://frischrealschool.org 
RS's FaceBook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/RealSchool/234355426650263?ref=hl.

An article about RealSchool appears in the Spring 2012 volume of The Lookstein Center’s Jewish Educational Leadership Journal and can be found here: http://www.lookstein.org/online_journal.php?id=425

Frisch LEADs

This year I decided to imbue the academic curriculum with more of RealSchool’s values. I worked with my fellow AP English Literature teachers and developed Frisch LEADs (Learning. Exploring. Analyzing. Designing.), a project that has students choose their own topic for study and research. Students blog about the discovery and planning process of this year-long undertaking and must complete a 25-page paper or a multi-media project by March. For more information, see http://frischlead.blogspot.com. 

Two particularly good examples of student blogs from the project can be found here:

http://ehlevine.blogspot.com

http://peninafrischleads.blogspot.com

The Global Classroom

As a proponent of global learning, I’ve also connected entire grades, my classes and particular students to students across the globe. I mentioned the junior integration day, which Frisch conducts with a school in Israel. I’ve also had my sophomore classes interact and converse on wikis with a school in Gush Etzion, Neveh Channah.

In addition, as a result of last year’s Frisch Africa Encounter, six sophomore girls became interested in building relationships with Ethiopian children in Israel. My sister Smadar Goldstein of JETS, an online learning provider based in Israel, presented the Frisch program on Ethiopian Jewry as a webinar. Smadar arranged for my sophomore girls to Skype with Ethiopian students, and one of my students, who is going to Israel in February 2013, is arranging a meeting with her Ethiopian friend.

Additional Resources

I’m a lover of social media, blogging, tweeting and posting on Facebook about my work and RealSchool’s. In addition to RealSchool’s blog, I also have an AP Art History blog and one on which I post about education, interdisciplinary studies and English.

For AP Art History:

http://aparthistorybytikvah.blogspot.com

For my education blog:

http://teachingwellandgood.blogspot.com

Here are three blog posts I particularly like:

The Greeks, Qohelet and the Importance of Beginning Again

http://teachingwellandgood.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-greeks-qohelet-and-importance-of.html

A Jewish Response to Hedonism and Narcissism

http://teachingwellandgood.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-jewish-response-to-hedonism-and.html

Sacred Space: Contemplating Colorado, Diablo III and the Destruction of the Temple

http://teachingwellandgood.blogspot.com/2012/07/sacred-space-contemplating-colorado.html

(You can discern my Sacksian and Heschelian worldview in those posts.)

Students Weigh In on Searching for a "Violence Gene"

I asked students in my Hot Topics English class, a class that has spent the fall semester debating myriad aspects of medical ethics, to read the following article:

Seeking Answers in Genome of Gunman

Then I asked students the following question, which they answered on our school wiki (The wiki is password-protected as students' full names are on it, so I cannot publicly share access to it):

Explain whether we as a society should pursue knowledge of the genomes of violent offenders. Using at least three facts you learned from the article and references to the eugenics programs of the early 20th century, answer in one paragraph on this post. 

Cite the article according to MLA standards.

I carefully showed students how to cite according to MLA Standards. As you can see, students are working out grammar and other errors, but the responses so far have been thoughtful and interesting. Here are two:

Student response #1:

I believe that society should study the genomes of violent offenders not in order to stigmatize them, but to shape their upbringing and environment in ways that could avoid the possible impact of their genetic predisposition. We are moving into a future where it is possible that newborns will have their DNA analyzed at birth, and their parents will be giving a list of suggested ways to create an environment that avoids potential problem areas. For example, if a baby is found to have a genetic predisposition to diabetes, the parents might be told to avoid sugar in the child’s diet. The article quotes scientists who are opposed to studying the DNA of violent mass murderers such as Adam Lanza, who recently killed 27 people in Newton, Ct., including 20 young children, as this would be the first time researchers study the DNA of a mass killer. Yet people are worried that there might be a repeat of the eugenics programs of the early 20th century, where because of the belief that criminal behavior was inherited, men with a extra Y chromosome were sterilized, but because of a lack or proof the program was stopped. Therefore, this information, if a genetic link to criminal violence is found, does not mean that it would be used against a child, but rather as a way of helping the child. Furthermore, if people are found to be genetically at risk for violence, it could be used at parole hearings, as noted in the article. Just this week a man who had been in jail for killing his own grandmother and eventually paroled, set a trap to purposely murder volunteer firefighters, who rushed to help put out the fire that this man had purposely set to kill. If the parole hearing knew he had a violent gene, they might have not released him. 


Student response #2:

After reading this article, my personal opinion on weather society should research and look into the genes of violent criminals is that I do not think we should pursue that idea. Having listened to both sides of the argument, I firmly believe that It is, for lack of a better term, a waste of time. One example that swayed me in this direction is in the article where the skeptics say: “there are likely to be hundreds of genes involved in extreme violent behavior, not to mention a variety of environmental influences, and that all of these factors can interact in complex and unpredictable ways.”(Kolata). This totally contradicts the argument that it is a genetic illness/disorder. Also Dr. Robert C. Green, a geneticist and neurologist at Harvard Medical School says: “It is almost inconceivable that there is a common genetic factor” and “I think it says more about us that we wish there was something like this. We wish there was an explanation.”(Kolata). I think there is a lot of truth to this statement. The whole reason for science is to explain things; it is human nature to want to understand why something happens or how something works. I also think that this is a purpose that religion also serves. When people cannot look to science to explain something, they use religion as a coping mechanism to “explain the unexplainable” if you will. One last idea that arose for me, which I found compelling, was that even if—hypothetically—we do find some significant gene mutation that leads to violence; what would we be able to do about it? If someone has a 2 percent, or ten percent, or even a twenty percent chance to be violent; what would we do with that information? We certainly cannot jump to any conclusions because the person has not done anything wrong yet. The only way is to take out that gene mutation and we are not at a point yet in science that we can do that yet. 

To add to the discussion about how society should deal with crime and punishment, I also recommend having students read the following three articles, all from the New York Times Magazine:

Can You Call a 9-Year-Old a Psychopath?

Greg Ousley is Sorry for Killing His Parents. Is That Enough?

Can Forgiveness Play a Role in Criminal Justice?