Learning Approach Models
Experiential Learning, Project Based Learning, and Gamification
In my learning scenarios, I imagined that gamification could be used to teach students how to identify reliability and bias in sources. In searching the internet for examples of games used by Civics teachers, I discovered that iCivics had actually created a game that teaches that skill and also how to create and maintain a quality social media site to support a cause or community.
In Newsfeed Defenders, you are given a choice of which type of newsfeed you would like to create: Student Life, Health & Wellness, and Sports & Entertainment. From there, you are shown a newsfeed with social media articles posted. You start by interacting with the posts as a reader – thumbs up/down, investigate source, read comments. Once you have shown that you have demonstrated an understanding of what type of posts are strongest for the feed, you begin to unlock new roles and abilities. If you are struggling, there is an infographic with content on how to check sources, look for bias, avoid clickbait, etc.
By the end, you pick comments to add to the threads, approve or delete and report posts for violating site guidelines, select articles to post yourself, and decide which posts to feature. Your progress is measured by three metrics: Integrity, Traffic, and Focus. As you go, you see how various decisions either increase or decrease your scores in those areas.
The program pauses at the 30 minute mark and allows you to take a screenshot of a certificate that you send to your teacher with your diagnostics printed on it. You may also choose to keep going until you are at 100% on all three metrics. This took me about an hour total, and I had to think hard about why actions I took increased one metric like Integrity but decreased another like Traffic. The iCivics website provides a full lesson plan with pre- and post-game questions and activities, including extension information and assessments.
These assessments have serve a function, to measure how well the learner has picked up new vocabulary and concepts. The open-ended questions included examples to be analyzed and evaluated. The ideal way to measure the learner’s skill at the end, however, is to create an authentic assessment that involves the student using their skills in a real-life scenario. In this case, the most authentic assessment would be for a learner to create their own newsfeed based on a topic they care about or to create a class newsfeed where they can share those articles and interact together as peers. In the andragogy scenario, I focused on the Black Lives Matter movement. Several times a day, I now have to evaluate a source on this topic that has been shared on social media or I have to decide if I want to share an article from a news site on my social media feed. I haven’t had any negative comments, but I also haven’t had many reactions at all. This game isn’t just teaching learners how to evaluate sources but also how to share quality sources in a way that will make the biggest impact.
Another option for an authentic assessment would even be an example of Project Based Learning. Learners could be given the challenge of supporting a real-life social movement like BLM using strategies learned through gamification. There is another game on iCivics called Activate that allows you to choose an issue and create a grassroots movement that will affect social change at the local, then state and federal levels. This one is more like a Sims game, and you are trying to build your movement through three main tactics: raising public awareness to gain followers, raising money to support the cause, and make connections with government officials who can impact legislation. There were several times when I got the feedback, “Writing an Opinion-Editorial had no effect. Try something else.” I can relate to this, as someone who actually writes Op-Ed pieces at the state level for public education advocacy. In addition to Newsfeed Defenders and Activate, learners could also play iCivics games like Lawcraft to teach them the skills needed to write a bill related to their issue. Once they have played the games and reflected on the experience, learners would then plan out their movement and conduct research to support those plans.
I incorporated the use of a game like this in my Behaviorist and Cognitivist learning scenarios to provide interest, individualized practice with concepts, and formative assessment. The iCivics website also provides a lesson with teacher materials that I would classify as Constructivist because it so clearly utilizes the Zone of Proximal Development process. This is obviously an example of gamification, but the game also simulates a real experience that learners go through and reflect upon afterward, which could be used as the hook to a lesson that is based on experiential learning. Civics teachers often use this type of activity to teach personal finance or elections. The game helps keep learners actively involved, provides instant feedback through point values and achievements, and progresses to challenge the learner at higher levels as the game proceeds.
This game scenario is similar to real learning experiences I have had as a student and teacher. In college, my Political Science teacher required us to work with a partner for several weeks playing SimCity. Part of the assessment was based on how well we did in the game, but the most meaningful part of the activity was the discussion that it triggered between us as partners and with the whole class throughout the process.
With my own Civics & Economics and Sociology students, I have used simulations on personal finance, creating a business, social class, elections, court cases, political power, and the legislative process. Most of these simulations were not done through a computer program, but rather through personal research and interactions between students and teacher. Regardless of the form, the essence of each simulation was putting the learners in a situation to have to make decisions, act and react, judge the positive and negative outcomes, test new strategies to maximize gain and avoid loss, form alliances and social contacts, have deep conversations, seek out knowledge that helped them move to progressively more challenging tasks, and engage in meaningful reflection and dialogue about the experience to formulate generalizations and theories.
Resources
Best Business and Finance Games. (2020, March 22). Retrieved June 16, 2020, from https://www.commonsense.org/education/top-picks/best-business-and-finance-games
Heick, T. (2019, September 24). 12 Examples Of Gamification In The Classroom -. Retrieved June 16, 2020, from https://www.teachthought.com/the-future-of-learning/12-examples-of-gamification-in-the-classroom/
Anuar, A. L. (2016, May 13). The Sims 4 Teacher Review. Retrieved June 16, 2020, from https://www.commonsense.org/education/game/the-sims-4-teacher-review/4114966
Prensky, M. (2007, March 09). A Side of Sims: Suggestions for the Classroom. Retrieved June 16, 2020, from https://www.edutopia.org/side-sims
ICivics | Free Lesson Plans and Games for Learning Civics. (n.d.). Retrieved June 16, 2020, from http://www.icivics.org/
SCHRIER, K. (2019). LEARNING, EDUCATION & GAMES, VOLUME 3: 100 games to use in the classroom & beyond. LULU COM. Retrieved June 16, 2020, from http://press.etc.cmu.edu/index.php/product/learning-education-games-volume-3/