Chocolate Covered Broccoli - Critique on The World According to Edu-Larps: The Analog Learning Games

"Kids can see through games that are made for educational purposes, games made for class work." — Ian Harper, game developer

I am a gamer. I have played video-games since Pong (dating myself here), and Tabletop RPG's since the first edition of D & D. What I love about games could fill a novel. If I could have played games in school, I would have been overjoyed; however, I loved learning just as much, reading particularly. I learned, though, because I was expected to learn. It is just what you did. My parents emphasized the importance of school. I didn't question why I was learning what I was learning until high school. Now as a teacher, I find I have to figure out how to create chocolate covered broccoli - hiding learning in something more palatable, something that seems desirable. I am not the only one. 

Something I noticed, though, in the years I've been playing and running analog (tabletop or pen and paper) RPG's, I tend to research, a lot, scads, when I am developing a game or a character. I have to utilize everything I know about organizing, presenting, acting, dreaming, etc. in order to create a believable world or a playable character. I have to know what they know, or at least know where to find that information. Hey, isn't that self-paced learning? Roleplaying Games in this sense are narrative media, interactive simulations that require the highest order of learning, synthesis.

In the article I chose to review, The World According to Edu-Larps: The Analog Learning Games, Sande Chen discusses the use of LARPs, or Live Action Role Playing (games) in an education setting. While this article is more a synthesis of others' research, it struck me as being well organized and researched, as well as well written encompassing the gambit of ideas surrounding improving educational environments through game-play including making them more informal and conducive to creative thinking and problem-solving.

Cheng places an emphasis on the components that take place outside of the game itself and posits a differing experience between analog and digital game experiences for learning based on differing social interaction opportunities with the games. Overall, games provide an environment where the "self-directed drive to learn" or intrinsic motivation, is more easily cultivated by teachers if students are within a non-coercive learning environment, more similar to an after-school program than a classroom. However, there is a missing component in most video-game playing that is present in analog gaming - peer communication and easier access to what she refers to as the meta-game or the "active discussions and social interactions between players outside the game," also known as affinity spaces. 

In addition to the self-directed learning components, Cheng also cites exactly what I have experienced myself as a rpg player, the acquisition and improvement of soft-skills--leadership, teamwork, confidence building, agency, and learning empowerment. While these occur somewhat within video-game play, they are far more engaged within tabletop play and interaction.

The combination of "improv theater with the game mechanics of tabletop rpg's" allows for narrative character progression and interactive storytelling. However, as Cheng discusses, this can be a hard sell to the education system. One of the key problems she discusses is the inability to do hard assessments. Video games are much more conducive to this assessment aspect of the education system. 

Particularly meaningful in this article was the evidence that the edu-larp curriculum seemed particularly beneficial to children with ADHD, Autism, and other challenges. Today's learning world is vastly different from the one I started in. Raw, easily regurgitated and assessed information is not the most important indication of learning, nor is it what is needed in the real world. Rethinking what indicates valuable, meaningful learning and the methods we use to assess needs to change and is the take-away from Cheng and those research sources referenced in this article. Though less dry of a read and more enjoyable to process than the last two articles, this was much harder to really evaluate. 

On a side note: She gives a great resource for card games designed with learning in mind.
Some of these look amazing.

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