Study of gamers at IU School of Education

Media advisory: Study of gamers at IU School of Education: IU News Room: Indiana University

The reason for the research, Appelman said, is that the learning style has changed for today’s students, but the content delivery has not adapted. In the standard method of teaching, teachers deliver content and expect memorization, reading, and other work to translate the learning into performing a task.

“Students today are absolutely bored with that approach,” Appelman said. “What they want to do is to dive in immediately and say, ‘Give me a task that I can learn from.'” The primary learning method gamers employ, he said, is trial and error. “This generation has no problem with failure. They ‘die’ hundreds of times a day, but they learn from that.”

Wouldn’t work for everything but it’s definitely worth thinking about. It’ll be interesting to see how it turns out.

One thought on “Study of gamers at IU School of Education

  1. Don’t forget that an interactive approach is not mutually exclusive with a genuine challenge. Just like practicing an instrument, accomplishing the task may still require hard work and dedication, even frustration. In the end, the determining factor will be the real and perceived benefit for the student; their participation must provide challenge and reward in a way that fosters learning and accomplishment. Game design has used this method, and although the final goals may be different, the level of appreciation for the experience of the user (student) must be similarly prioritized.

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