After thinking about this for a while, there’s a pattern to games that might be useful to think about:
Games generally follow a pattern of:
- presenting a pattern to look for.
- presenting tools to solve that sort of pattern.
Then task you with implementing and reiterating that sort of solution.
This is close to how we teach STEM, but games tend to start breaking their own patterns (or the contextual clues for the patterns) in a smoother way. (E.g. portal where you’re gradually asked to think more and more (laterally) “with portals”)
So if we take a dichotomal view on education vs learning, we can say that games will encourage you to learn more effectively (in the context of the game, typically)
I suspect this can be helped with the concept of gameplay loops/cycles.
What games are good at is aiding the reinforcement cycle at the core of learning a skill.
(This cycle is also in any technical skill.)
Games are fun as long as they avoid this repetition and reiteration cycle feeling like a grind. Which is where Educational(tm) material quickly becomes stuck.
Grind is, in a sense, a qualifier of your experience. How the repetition feels to you.
If you’re “grinding” with a purpose, and it’s paced so your progress feels steady towards a self-elected goal, then it does not feel like grinding.
If it’s dry-repetitions, then you feel the grind. And that’s the trap of educational (I think)
(The ideas here are still mostly half-cooked, but hopefully it can add to the discussion)
This is close to how we teach STEM, but games tend to start breaking their own patterns (or the contextual clues for the patterns) in a smoother way. (E.g. portal where you’re gradually asked to think more and more (laterally) “with portals”)
So if we take a dichotomal view on education vs learning, we can say that games will encourage you to learn more effectively (in the context of the game, typically)
I suspect this can be helped with the concept of gameplay loops/cycles.
What games are good at is aiding the reinforcement cycle at the core of learning a skill.
(This cycle is also in any technical skill.)
Games are fun as long as they avoid this repetition and reiteration cycle feeling like a grind. Which is where Educational(tm) material quickly becomes stuck.
Grind is, in a sense, a qualifier of your experience. How the repetition feels to you. If you’re “grinding” with a purpose, and it’s paced so your progress feels steady towards a self-elected goal, then it does not feel like grinding.
If it’s dry-repetitions, then you feel the grind. And that’s the trap of educational (I think)
(The ideas here are still mostly half-cooked, but hopefully it can add to the discussion)