Session Information
| Title | Meaningful Play: Gamers as Teachers |
| Presenter(s) | Johnathon Beals, Brenda Imber and Valerie Waldron |
| Time | Saturday, October 18, 11:30a-12:30p |
| Location | Lake Ontario |
| Format | Speaker |
| Description | The use and repurposing of commercially available games for educational and other contexts has been a topic of interest to the educational field for some time (Gee 2003, Squire 2011). Often, the major questions have been how games can be the instrument through which learning can occur, or how games can be directly applied to course content. However, our project, "Gamers as Teachers" asked a different question i.e.: Can the social experience of learning and playing a game be integrated into an ESL oral skills curriculum? If so, then how might the syllabus be structured? This session presents a case study of an experimental program conducted during the Summer semester of 2014, based on the hypothesis that gaming might be an effective integrated approach to improve oral skills for international graduate students preparing to become International Teaching Assistants. The study was conducted by a collaborative of three units at the University of Michigan: the English Language Institute , the Language Resource Center, and the Computer & Video Game Archive. We will explore the logistics, concerns and challenges that emerged, as well as the human and departmental resources required during this pilot phase. Three major components will be presented: the structure, the content, and the implementation of the course. Presenters from each unit will describe the rationale for how games were selected, how content was structured, and how materials were selected or developed for inclusion. In addition, procedures for capturing classroom practice and giving feedback will be demonstrated. Attendees will see vignettes from the pilot's implementation, review feedback from the students, as well as participate in an illustrative activity and discuss the issues that arise through play. |