{"id":854,"date":"2016-06-19T14:43:56","date_gmt":"2016-06-19T18:43:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/minireference.com\/blog\/?p=854"},"modified":"2020-11-20T08:19:28","modified_gmt":"2020-11-20T13:19:28","slug":"learning-can-be-fun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minireference.com\/blog\/learning-can-be-fun\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning can be fun"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I just read this excellent\u00a0article <em><a href=\"http:\/\/educationoutrage.blogspot.ca\/2016\/03\/pragmatic-learning-its-not-fun.html\">Pragmatic Learning: It&#8217;s not &#8220;fun&#8221;<\/a><\/em>\u00a0on Roger Schank&#8217;s\u00a0blog. It&#8217;s\u00a0a\u00a0very good post that calls bullshit on the &#8220;gamification&#8221; cargo cult which is widespread in the edtech and\u00a0corporate training\u00a0world. Just adding points, badges, and levels to a corporate training program that teaches you something boring is not going to suddenly make it fun. The author&#8217;s main observation is that <strong>forced learning is not fun<\/strong>\u00a0and we need not pretend\u00a0it is. Consider an\u00a0employer who wants their employees to\u00a0know\u00a0X\u00a0because it is required by law, or a bunch of students forced\u00a0to learn Y or\u00a0else they&#8217;ll fail. These &#8220;forced&#8221; trainings are not fun, and\u00a0gamifying them is akin to\u00a0putting lipstick on a pig.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Instead of gamification, the author\u00a0suggests learner&#8217;s experience should\u00a0focus more on things like:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Getting away from the one-size fits all approach:<br \/>\n<blockquote><p>Courses need not be administered to multitudes. One can have a course that is for one person only and can be used when needed. [&#8230;]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<li>The use of\u00a0simulators<\/li>\n<li>Enable\u00a0students to collaborate with peers who are learning the same thing<\/li>\n<li>Have human teachers (tutors) available\u00a0to help<\/li>\n<li>Enable &#8220;learn by doing&#8221; experiences:<br \/>\n<blockquote><p>[&#8230;] real autonomous, motivated, learning happens when you are in the middle of doing something, and questions arise in your mind about it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<li>Provide training in a &#8220;just in time&#8221;(JIT) manner, e.g. provide training on X right before the student will need to\u00a0do X.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I\u00a0highly <a href=\"http:\/\/educationoutrage.blogspot.ca\/2016\/03\/pragmatic-learning-its-not-fun.html\">recommend you read the article<\/a> because\u00a0the above summary hardly does it justice.\u00a0I agree with 90% of the observations in this article, but I\u00a0have some comments and observations of my own to add below the fold.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<h3>Learning can be\u00a0<em>somewhat<\/em> fun<\/h3>\n<p>Learning some things is\u00a0not fun for sure, like learning to factor quadratic expressions, or learning the exact accounting procedures you must follow as part of your job. But there are\u00a0many other types of learning that\u00a0<em>can<\/em> be\u00a0fun.<\/p>\n<p>One way things can be fun is through the knowledge buzz student feels once they understand a concepts, or see a\u00a0new connections between concepts they already know about. I&#8217;m not talking about getting a good grade on an exam or successfully solving a\u00a0problem\u2014I&#8217;m talking about the sheer pleasure of learning new things. The author describes the feeling of &#8220;winning,&#8221; which is very similar to what I\u00a0call &#8220;knowledge buzz&#8221; here.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Sell the applications<\/h3>\n<p>Although I&#8217;m a big fan of the just-in-time knowledge idea, we shouldn&#8217;t give up on the possibility of ahead-of-time training, as\u00a0in the context of formal education where student take\u00a0courses and learn things &#8220;in theory&#8221; that they will\u00a0put into practice only years down the line. Some skills\u00a0take two hours\u00a0to learn, some take two weeks, some take two months, but there&#8217;re also skills and knowledge take on the order of two years to acquire. Think medicine. It&#8217;s impractical to use <em>only<\/em> just-in-time training for doctors to fill in the\u00a0gaps in their knowledge when they&#8217;re already seeing patients.<\/p>\n<p>One way to justify this frontloading of work is to &#8220;sell&#8221; the\u00a0applications of the concepts the student is learning. \u00a0Put the applications first. We can explain all the doors that open for the student wants to learn the concepts at hand, which will motivate them\u00a0to learn the theory and go through the course. This approach works well if the student can tests their knowledge through practical experiments and simulations as the author\u00a0recommends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I just read this excellent\u00a0article Pragmatic Learning: It&#8217;s not &#8220;fun&#8221;\u00a0on Roger Schank&#8217;s\u00a0blog. It&#8217;s\u00a0a\u00a0very good post that calls bullshit on the &#8220;gamification&#8221; cargo cult which is widespread in the edtech and\u00a0corporate training\u00a0world. Just adding points, badges, and levels to a corporate training program that teaches you something boring is not going to suddenly make it fun. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,13,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prerequisites","category-product","category-teaching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minireference.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minireference.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minireference.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minireference.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minireference.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=854"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/minireference.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1476,"href":"https:\/\/minireference.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854\/revisions\/1476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minireference.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minireference.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minireference.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}