Play Takes Centre Stage In The Classroom
The Age
Wednesday February 13, 2002
IF LLOYD RIEBER has anything to do with it, the school of the future would look more like a TimeZone arcade than a classroom: children creating computer games in studiotype settings where they work in teams and become their own judges.
It might sound too farfetched to be a realistic option for change but Professor Rieber, from the University of Georgia, in the United States, has seen it work - and is excited by the results.
``I envision the creation of innovative schools that use `learning by design' as their basic philosophy. School should be a place that matters today for children, not merely a place to prepare them for tomorrow," he recently told an international teachers' conference in Melbourne.
``Education based on design activities is consistent with the information age. In contrast, today's schools are still based on industrialage attitudes where many fail, a few flourish and the rest are happy to survive."
Professor Rieber was here for the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education conference. A former primary school teacher and academic with more than 20 years experience, he says he became concerned about the lack of enthusiasm children had for school, compared with their devotion to tasks during their ``play" time.
``A person's interest in school learning rarely compares to the commitment that characterises their learning outside of school," he says. ``School has the resources, the time and the expertise available to help a person. Yet something seems to happen to so many people when they walk across the threshold of a school's door that thwarts such learning."
What Professor Rieber noticed was the intense interest children had in technology and saw the potential for it to be harnessed for educational purposes. For the past decade, he has been using it to design projects aimed at reinvigorating education in schools so that children see learning as ``play".
``I believe the phenomenon of play offers the best chance we have for both understanding and realising the interplay between motivation, learning and technology," he says.
``We know how to teach, how to learn, how to play but we don't know how to manage school resources - people, curricula, technology, time, etc - to capitalise on the diversity of our students to bring out their natural learning abilities."
Professor Rieber and his colleagues have created a range of projects that have been successfully tested in universities and schools, all based around the concept of letting students ``play" with computers.
In Project Kiddesign, they worked with about 200 students over two years, where they asked them to design games relevant to their class. The children designed the games' goals, rules, characters and graphics, while the adults put them together according to the children's plans as they evolved. They were free to form design teams where members took on jobs that suited their skills and interest.
Professor Rieber says the students grasped the concept quickly and soon appointed project managers, subject matter experts, graphic designers and lead gamedesigners. Not only did the students thrive in their roles, they began to trust the teachers and listen to their advice, learning because they wanted to know.
Professor Rieber says the approach has the potential to ``turn the tables on teaching" and could easily be applied in Australia - ``It would be relevant across countries" - but he believes it would require a radical change in the way schools teach.
``We need to rethink school as a place where `one size fits all', instead allowing children to develop their own focus and depth. Games are but one type of a design activity, though one with which I have had much success."
Schools are known to resist change. ``It's not a criticism of the schools, it's the system itself," he says.
``(But) the reward is an intense and satisfying experience that is best described as play. It's an elusive goal, yet one worth the trouble and challenges. I'm hopeful that school can be a place where people with diverse talents and interests can all find a niche."
© 2002 The Age