Problem-Solving

Video Games and Problem-Solving

Video games were a big part of my childhood. I played games like Sonic the Hedgehog and X-Men for SEGA, Super Mario World and Jurassic Park for Super Nintendo, Legend of Zelda, Tetris, and Pokemon on the Gameboy and Gameboy color, Diddy Kong Racing, F-Zero X racing, Star Wars pod racing, and Super Smash Brothers for Nintendo 64, and various games for Sony Playstation 2. 

Today I still own some of those games, though I do not play them anymore. I am more likely to play Angry Birds Star Wars or another mobile game application on my iPhone. I may even head over to the PacMan Arcade machine while at a restaurant, bowling alley or movie theatre. Occasionally I still play Gran Turismo or Need for Speed Underground (NFSU) racing games for my Playstation 2 (it still works!) because I like car racing, especially formula 1 race cars. Before today, I hadn't played NFSU2 in months, but the video footage below suggests I can still push buttons to work my car quickly around the tracks.

NFSU2 and other car racing games can be challenging for those who do not recognize how the increase in the difficulty of the game hinges on the player's ability to not simply push the button that controls the virtual car's gas pedal and throttle. To get his or her car to drive fast times, the player must recognize and fix the problems associated with traveling along pathways that are not the shortest distance "travel-able," accelerating while turning, entrance into and exits out of turns, and when to let off the gas, brake, use the emergency brake, or use a combination of these options. One must identify and solve these problems for each track or turn and account for and respond to competitive drivers' behaviors to master the more difficult levels of gameplay in car racing games. I like to think that playing so many racing games growing up has been good for my real-world driving skills; my problem-solving in the game seems to have spilled over into real life (e.g. I quickly brake and turn to dodge a bad driver who was about to crash into me). [Disclaimer: I don't do things in a car that I would in a virtual in-game car like drifting or driving at high speeds, nor do I recommend it. Take that interest to a game console or racetrack, not the streets].

Reflecting back on all of my gameplay as a child and as an adult, I cannot help but wonder if playing the games I played helped me develop problem-solving skills that I transferred to other experiences. Even in my youth I occasionally felt like I experienced gains in my problem-solving skills from my gameplay. If so, then it was certainly a fun way to not only exercise my skills, but also develop my abilities to transfer my skills elsewhere. From an "instructional design" or "learning sciences" point of view, I can understand how playing a car racing game could help develop important driving skills and how using different sets of controllers that progressively get more like the tools we use in real-world driving scenarios (a steering wheel) could facilitate transfer of those important driving skills to real-world driving. However, from the same point of view I struggle to see how playing a car racing game can develop and facilitate transfer of general problem-solving skills in ways that sufficiently help people be more prepared to solve any problem they encounter. I am not sure that any game could do this.

Can we design game or simulation experiences that can develop and facilitate transfer of general problem-solving skills in ways that sufficiently help people be more prepared to solve any problem they encounter? If not, why not? What is the best that we can do to get as near as possible to it? 

This fall I will be blogging about the relationship between games, learning, and problem-solving experiences. I hope to explore others' answers to the questions posed above and their analyses of the problems these questions represent. I will attempt to work out my own answers along the way.

In my next post, I'll take a close look at James Paul Gee's thoughts on the importance of both learning and problem-solving to the enjoyability and effectiveness of games. For now, I will leave you with a glimpse at Gee's thoughts in the video below.

James Paul Gee from New Learning Institute on Vimeo.

Good Instructional Design

During the past year or so, I have gained a lot of software training experience, some web design experience, and some experience in creating multimedia learning resources. In short, I have gained a variety of instructional design skills and experiences. This semester I am teaching two undergraduate level courses, and when I tell my students what I am studying, they don't have a clue as to what instructional design is.

Instructional designers are engineers of learning experiences for maximizing learning benefits.

It's a challenge for me to further define and elucidate Instructional Design and Technology completely in my own words and without reference to other, formal definitions because of the research I did about the field before committing myself to it, the experience I have gained in it already, and the IDT coursework I have already had. So, I will try to further define the engineering of learning experiences that instructional designers do based on what I already know, what makes instructional design good, and potential future directions of the field.

Good instructional design is the continual process of engineering good learning experiences with learner-centered approaches that apply to the learners served. Instructional designers design learning experiences that fit learning objectives, learning objectives that cohere into learner-friendly lessons or training sessions, and lessons or trainings that cohere into courses or curricula. To maximize learning benefits, instructional designers design learning experiences, objectives, lessons or trainings, and courses or curricula in accordance with a blend of evidence-based learning theory (e.g. multimedia learning theory and research findings about instructional design strategies for making multimedia learning resources) and learner analysis. They also use a variety of other assessments (e.g. quizzes, performance assessments, or exams) in the process of engineering good learning experiences to facilitate individualized progress.

No matter how social or technology-enhanced learning experiences are, they always depend on the learner being active. All kinds of good learning involve, at the very least, paying attention and use of short-term memory and working memory abilities towards sustainable, relevant and transferrable gains. Most of the time (where transferrable knowledge is the goal), good learning involves integration with prior knowledge and skills. Thus, good instructional design engineers learning experiences that learners find engaging, interesting, and relevant, while at the same time expending the psychological and motivational sets of learners towards meeting learning objectives and becoming self-regulated learners who use metacognition to transfer their learning gains to their personal lives.

When I took a class about the diffusion of innovations and reflected on innovations and social systems in relation to learning technologies, I thought a lot about the role of technology in instructional design. I learned that some, whether they realize it or not, often take a technology-centric or pro-innovation approach to engineering learning experiences without regard for it's appropriateness in the given context. Good instructional design must be learner-centric and learning objective-centric, not essentially technology-centric. Technology has important roles in enhancing both learning experiences and learning objectives, especially where technology can make possible for learning what other instructional means cannot. However, technology integration must cohere to sound pedagogy.

I think the field of instructional design and technology is experiencing a neat phenomenon right now--MOOCs--that will make or break how our field is perceived by those outside of it. MOOCs are massively open online courses that anyone in the world with an internet-connected computer can take, and a lot of higher education institutions recognized as "Ivy League" or "world class" are currently offering MOOCs via platforms like Coursera, NovoEd (previously Venture Lab), and Canvas. I joke that the future meaning of our field is at the birth or death of MOOCs because though an evidence-based, theory-enhanced, learner-centric approach to education is important, many current MOOCs sometimes lack in this area of instructional design. Because so many people associate credibility with recognition, reputation, or popularity and associate all this with the institutions offering MOOCs, MOOCs could potentially become the benchmark by which instructional design and learning experiences themselves are evaluated by those outside our field (hopefully not inside our field). Hopefully, if MOOCs are the future of higher education in any salient way, MOOCs cohere to good instructional design and instructional deign coheres to evidence-based, theory-enhanced, learner-centric approaches to education. Otherwise, we won't be engineers or benefactors of good learning experiences.

Well then, what might my future IDT job(s) look like? Since I am the type that has trouble separating theoretical interests from the rest of my life, I look forward to a career track that combines some of these interests: multimedia learning theory, software training, cognitive training, problem-solving training, the natures of different kinds of transferrable gains, definitions of learning, relevance authenticity, and flow, engagement, game-based learning, and gamification of learning experiences. However my IDT stars will align, I know that I have a strong interest in the research around these topics and in application of evidence-based instructional design strategies for engineering learning experiences that maximize all kinds of learning. Maybe one day my job will be called instructional engineer learning engineer learning experience engineer (LX engineer)!

As I continue learning and practicing as an instructional designer/technologist, I will continue to observe more blogs and news sites. In the past, when I have wanted to learn more from or be inspired by software tips and tricks for designing multimedia learning resources, I have observed the lynda.com blog and the rapid elearning blog. When I have wanted to keep up with new software applications and emerging technologies, I have observed edsurge, mashable, techcrunch, and edudemic. When I want teachers' perspectives on ed tech, I read the teachthought blog, the EdTechGuy blog, and the freetechnologyforteachers blog. I also keep a critical eye on startups emerging from imaginek12. I will now also follow the ASTD blog and AECT news site.