DR. ANDRE THOMAS,FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR OF THE LIVE LAB, DEPARTMENT OF VISUALIZATION, TEXAS A&M
Education is ripe for disruption. Society’s been told – and accepted – that the textbook is holy and contains all knowledge. We also accept that a professor standing in front of 200 students in a classroom is considered a good education at a university. Those are acceptable in some instances, but it isn’t conducive to effective learning and teaching for the majority.
We can see this problem more clearly in K – 12 schooling in the United States. Classrooms may have 20 students and have said textbooks that learners read. Educators studied how to help learners with maths and reading and implemented a variety of interventions. However, we’ve seen a decline in maths and reading. Why? We’re teaching students in the same old ways.
The future of education is gamed-based learning. It must be proven to be educational to bring a game into the classroom. Bring a textbook into the school; nobody has to verify its efficacy. There’s no system to hold publishers, authors, schools, etc., accountable. When we see that accountability, we’ll see a massive transformation in the education sector.
Game-based learning pushes that forward. Today, a game can be supplementary material in the classroom where a student will use it as a homework assignment. The game will become all the learning and teaching materials in the future. Games will be pervasive in every classroom in the next five to ten years.
Game-based learning is experiential learning. With a game, the aim is to solve a problem. This problem-based approach is experiential learning. In a game, failing is fun; it is okay to fail and try until you succeed; that’s how real life works. We don’t solve problems on the first attempt: we try 99 ways, and maybe on the 100th, it works.
How do we allow students 99 attempts without demoralizing them? A game can change the entire dynamic. It will also change what teachers are doing in the classroom. That’s a very different approach to teaching and learning.
Dr. Andre Thomas is an Associate Professor of the Practice at Texas A&M University. He is the founder and director of the LIVE Lab, a research facility within the Department of Visualization at the School of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts. Dr. Thomas has 25 years of experience in CGI production for international projects, such as legendary video games, live-action feature films, and commercials. He is an international speaker at numerous education and technology events and is recognized as one of the top 100 EdTech influencers in the world.
