In his blog post "Jane McGonigal Keynote - Reflection" David Warlick writes "...what would truly help me is understanding the mechanisms that evoke those emotions. How do games do it — and how might formal learning experiences pull those same triggers." The emotions Mr. Warlick is referring to comes from a list shared by Ms. McGonigal during her keynote at ISTE 2013. They are "joy, relief, love, surprise, pride, curiosity, excitement, awe & wonder, contentment, and creativity".
While I'm not an expert in gaming, its educational value, or of the human mind, I think I have a pretty solid idea as to what makes the joy of gaming so drastically different from the anti-joy of classrooms and schools today's (and the past two centuries') education system has to offer. (My thinking comes from my own combination of experiences as a classroom teacher, life-long learner, recreational gamer, and human-observer.)
Before I start my list, I need to stress that there are many important things the average classroom offers that video games lack. (For starters, building relationships, learning social etiquette, and appropriate peer and adult interactions.)
Now, here's my list of why kids receive so many more positive emotions from video games than the classroom:
1) The gamers get to choose the content of their games. If you force someone to play a game they have no interest in, the excitement and joy will look a lot like when in the classroom. In other words, you'll hardly notice it.
2) There is no failing in video games, only having to try again. When gamers realize that a botched effort only means another attempt, they aren't afraid of trying again or demoralized when it isn't successful. Plus, they are much more willing to try different ways to solve the problem.
3) While often completely hidden from the gamer, the learning is vital to success later in the game. This is significant for two reasons. First, the skills are not forced upon the player in some ridiculous, pseudo-level. Instead, they are taught in real-game situations. The second piece to this is that there are no useless skills the gamers are forced to learn just for the sake of learning them. Every skill you need is learned and every skill learned is needed,
4) The assessment technique doesn't take the gamer away from the actual learning or the fun. Unlike our current education system, the gaming industry is similar to the real world. In gaming and most careers, your assessment tends to occur in the tasks required by your role, as opposed to some separate worksheet or task.
5) The skills are introduced in such a way that the player's frustration is limited. First, the gamer has multiple opportunities to practice each skill, in actual game scenarios, before it is vital to their success. Second, if the player doesn't learn a required skill, they don't move on to the next level. This prevents most players from hating a game due to it being too difficult for too long of a time.
6) When a game or task is too difficult, there are dozens (hundreds?) of useful resources — usually videos or blog posts created by their peers — to teach them exactly what they need to know to be successful. (Just-in-time learning is highly undervalued in our education system and our society.) In other words, "cheating" isn't an issue, because, if the skills are important, the "cheating" will be to learn, not to pass a test or complete an assignment. (I should point out that there are still ways to cheat that are frowned upon, but it's not the form where a player finds the answer by observing someone else's work.)
Some will agree with what I have offered here and some will not. But, whatever your beliefs as to why gaming offers students positive feelings that school does not, it's important to understand that education can learn a thing or two from the world of gaming. In fact, the keys to a successful game may truly be the keys to successful learning in everything we do.
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