A New Form of Game-based Learning: Quest To Learn (Q2L) (Individual Entry #2)
During my research on the web about the combination of technology, new media and education, I found out about a school whose concept seems to be revolutionising educational system: Quest to Learn, an innovate concept of school using gaming principles to increase student engagement with the curriculum as well as real world issues. Instead of subjects just being taught, students are encouraged to learning by doing.
Click on the logo of the school or the link to be directed the official website of Quest to Learn. The website proivdes a lot of information about the concept and one can get an impression of how the underlying system works. The site is organised in way that shows how the principle of achieving the master level in specially designed games could work.
Although Q2L is not directly linked to New Media in Foreign Language Teaching, I think the concept of this school is worth being discussed because it combines the potential of new media und real learning time in a unique way. Due to the fact that I was fascinated about the idea of Q2L and wanted to know more about its principles and aims and also examine with a critical eye if the concept is as efficient as it is said to be, I feel that foreign language teachers should definitely know about this school and maybe let themselves get inspired.
In this relatively long video below, Katie Salen-Tekinbas, Co-Founder of Quest to Learn, gives a speech at WISE (world innovation summit for education) and explains the concept behind Q2L.
3 conditions that influenced Q2L: 2:12
4 principles of games at Q2L: 4:15
Q2L in action: 6:00
Tablet-based games: 13:03
Power-Point-based games: 14:21
Principles of immediate and ongoing feedback (How does assessment work?) and gaining expertise by means of problem solving: 15:14
Modified commercial video games used for educational purposes: 17:31
What does the data say about the school Q2L?: 23:08
WISE Channel. (16.01.2014). What's Your Game? Quest to Learn Schools Rethink Education - Katie Salen - WISE 2013 Focus. Online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYHnPwY88w8. (Stand 19.02.2016).
Quest to learn is a sixth- to twelfth-grade public Middle- and Hishschool in New York City that opened in the autumn of 2009. The school was designed by the Institute of Play in partnership with New Visions for Public Schools, the largest education-reform organisation in New York City. Its aim is to improve the quality of education for students in New York City’s public schools. The school has added a grade each year after it had opened in 2009. Until now, more than 450 students visit Quest to Learn.
Game-based Learning
The learning that takes place at Q2L is situated and game-based. “Situated” means that students are asked to take on the identities and behaviours of inventors, writers, historians, mathematicians and scientists in contexts that are real and meaningful to them. By “game-based” is meant an approach to learning that engages students in a deep exploration of subject matter. Games here work as rule-based learning systems, creating worlds in which players actively participate, use strategic thinking to make choices, solve complex problems, apply content knowledge, receive constant feedback and consider the point of view of others. Salen herself writes that “[g]ames instantiate worlds in which players grow, receive constant feedback, and develop ways of thinking and seeing the world (Salen 2007).”.
Consequently, several criteria have to apply to these games:
1. Games are carefully designed, learner-driven systems.
2. Games produce meaning.
3. Games are dynamic systems.
4. Games are immersive.
5. Games are interactive and dynamic, requiring a player’s participation.
https://scitechteach2011.wordpress.com/2011/04/07/reason-and-purpose-q2lwebsite/
The students are asked to solve complex problems in math, science, English language arts (ELA), and social studies in gamelike ways. During working on goal-oriented challenges like exploring dynamic systems and their effects, the students work with models, simulations and games. In that way, the curriculum supports students in exploring and experiencing global dynamics, for example, how world economic, political, technological, environmental and social systems work and are interdependent across nations and regions. Furthermore, students are trained in the process of research, theory building, hypothesis testing, evaluation and critique, followed by a debate on their results.
Edutopia. (30.07.2013). Katie Salen on the Power of Game-Based Learning (Big Thinkers Series). Online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk_OfUHpCbM. (Stand: 19.02.2016)
Institute of Play. The Real Work of a 21st Century Education (2016). Online: http://www.instituteofplay.org/about/. (Stand 19.02.2016)
Salen, K. 2007. “Gaming Literacies: A Game Design Study in Action.” Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia 16, no. 3:301–322
Ten Core Practises Defining Quest to Learn (Salen 2011)
1. Taking on Identities
The students’ identity is complex and evolves with their membership in their own community of practice. They are writer, designer, reader, producer, teacher, student and gamer. Students learn to be biologists, historians and mathematicians instead of learning about biology or history or math.
2. Using Game Design and Systems Thinking
Everything students do in school connects to their lives outside of school by means of a game design and system perspective.
3. Practicing in Context
Life systems the students inhabit are shared with others; they are modelled, designed, taken apart, reengineered and gamed as ways of knowing.
4. Playing and Reflecting
The learners play games and reflect their own learning within them.
5. Theorizing and Testing
Students learn by proposing, testing, playing with and validating theories about the world.
6. Responding to a Need to Know
The students are motivated to ask questions, to search for complex answers and to take on the responsibility to imagine solutions with others.
7. Interacting with Others
Games are not only models for helping students think about how the world works, but also dynamic media through which to engage socially and to develop a deeper understanding of themselves in the world.
8. Experimenting and Imagining Possibilities
The students take risks, make meaning and act creatively and resourcefully within many different kinds of systems.
9. Giving and Receiving Feedback
The students’ learning is visible to them and they know how to anticipate what they will need to learn next.
10. Inventing Solutions
The students solve problems using a game design and system methodology: They identify the rules, invent a process, execut, and evaluate.
Which competences are central to Q2L pedagogy? (Salen 2011)
The Q2L pedagogy involves technological, social,
communicational, scientific and creative competences:
Systems-Based Thinking
Students design and analyze dynamic systems: a characteristic activity in both the media and in science today.
Design Thinking
Students apply design methods as strategies for innovation to problem-solving and problem-seeking activities.
Interdisciplinary Thinking
Students solve simple and complex problems that require them apply and synthesize knowledge from different domains and subjects. They become resourceful as they learn how to find and use information in meaningful ways.
User-Centered Design
Students act as socio-technical engineers, thinking about how people interact with systems and how systems shape both competitive and collaborative social interaction.
Specialist Language
Students learn to use complex technical linguistic and symbolic elements from a variety of domains, at several different levels and for a variety of different purposes.
Metalevel Reflection
Students learn to explain and defend their ideas, describe issues and interactions at a metalevel, create and test hypotheses and reflect on the impact of their ideas on others.
Network Literacy
Students learn how to integrate knowledge from multiple sources, including music, video, online databases, other media and other students. By means of that, they participate in the collaboration that new communication and information technologies enable.
Productive/Tool Literacy
Students gain an ability to use digital technologies to produce both meanings and tangible results, including games.
The Q2L curriculum is supposed to activate five conditions for learning: a need to know, a need to share and reflect, an occasion to share, ongoing feedback and evaluation and channels for distribution across internal and external communities (Salen 2011).
Salen, Katie et al. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reports on Digital Media and Learning. Quest to Learn - Developing the School for Digital Kids. The MIT Press (2011). Online: http://www.instituteofplay.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/QuestToLearn-DevelopingTheSchoolForDigitalKids.pdf. (Stand: 19.02.2016)
Critical view on Quest to Learn
Due to the fact that the impact on students’ learning processes and effects on the students’ preparation for further educational steps like colleges etc. are largely unexplored since the first class will graduate in the autumn of 2016, it is hard to find scientific data to evaluate how effective Q2L is and how well the learners might integrate into commercial educational systems. Nonetheless, I can imagine that potential problems, which might arise, could concern adaptability, effectiveness in higher grades and the recognition of graduation certificates.
Because the students of Q2L are used to game-based and gamelike learning, they might have difficulties in adapting into “traditional” education like it is common at universities and colleges; at least it would be a huge switch for them. Since they have experienced a rather playful and practical approach towards learning and knowledge, it could be hard for them to come into terms with a more theoretical approach towards knowledge.
Another point I doubt is the effectiveness of game-based learning in higher grades. Although one might think at the first glance that games always promote engagement, I think it could be possible that especially pubescent teenagers might lose interest in gaming and playing since they do not want to be treated like children anymore. Of course, teachers can react to that by creating more mature games dealing with more serious topics, but nevertheless I think it is difficult to keep them motivated. Surely, many teenagers at “normal” high schools are also not motivated so let us have a look at another aspect concerning the effectiveness of game-based learning: obligatory tasks to solve when it comes to comparable school-leaving qualifications. We cannot predict with certainty that students from Q2L are able to solve non-playful and non-game-based tasks as well as graduates from traditional schools do. This needs further observation and leads to another aspect: As long as the efficiency of Q2L is not properly researched it could be possible that graduation certificates may not be accepted; or at least students who graduated from Q2L could be disadvantaged in comparison to graduates from traditional schools when it comes to jobs or colleges.
