Leadership & Technology

The Realities of Teaching “Millennials” and the Next Generation, as yet Unnamed – D2L Post – July 11, 2016

If my memory serves me, I believe the questions on the screen in class at the end of the day asked us to identify some of the realities associated with teaching this generation of students.

Gibson & Sodeman (2014) tell us that the Millennial generation includes those born between 1981-2000 (p. 66), so students who are in senior high school presently fall into the tail end of this generation of people.  Gibson & Sodeman (2014) indicate that the generation born from 2001 to present day have yet to be named (p.71). I will be addressing the yet-to-be-named generation in my discourse here.

Over the course of the past two school years, the idea of involving games in my classroom has come to my attention. My first exposure occurred two years ago when I purchased a laboratory set of MinecraftEdu and exposed my grade seven, eight and nine students to it in various different ways, asking them questions as we went. Admittedly, I was not well-versed in the game when I made the decision to see what could be accomplished with Minecraft in my classroom. I was not merely surprised by the levels of engagement, productivity and the possibility for learning, I was astounded.

My second exposure to the idea of gamification occurred during last summer’s on-campus session when our cohort took the EDER679-17 Digital Game Based Learning Course with Dr. Kim. and we looked at the body of research behind game-based learning and gamification. The course and the readings began to disrupt my thinking with respect to games and their place in schools. I had observed some changes in my classroom through the implementation of MinecraftEdu, but wasn’t aware that gamification was on the Horizon report, nor that it was a trend in education that was being seriously considered.

Dr. Kim spent the second semester of this past school year researching students as game designers in one of my grade nine classes. I reworked my grade nine program to include a new option course which will make its official debut for the 2017 school year. (I will run the class again this year, but need to have flexibility as to which class I select for the course, as I intend to conduct my action research for my collaboratory work within that class, and it must be a class that has leadership as its other option class so I can attempt to triangulate my data).

With the above three examples (though lacking in rich detail), and the majority of my Learning Tasks for my courses being focused toward the topic of gamification and game-based learning, it might seem obvious that I would be cognizant of the role that games play in the lives of the yet-to-be-named generation. I have recently come to the thought that I have underestimated the power of games in the formulation of the worldview held by this generation. I will give an example:

J. I’ve had the privilege of teaching J for two of the past three years. (I didn’t have him in grade eight). J is unlike any student I’ve taught before. He is our top academic student. He is also our top athlete. (This alone is unusual). But, he is also the nicest, most genuine student in my school (600 kids). In three years, I’ve never heard J utter a mean word (unusual in junior high), he is always available to assist staff with any task they require, and as new students come from other countries (we have a relatively large international program) we always pair them up with J for their first few days to familiarize and acclimatize to life in Canada; as much as is possible for a 14 year old in a foreign country.  J is also a proficient code-writer and a gamer. This spring, J told me a story. It went as follows, and I will word it, as he told me, with as much accuracy (verbatim) as I am able to.

“Mrs. Baragar…. You know how I won badminton provincials a couple weeks ago? There’s kind of a story if you want to know it. I think you’ll be interested.  So the first game, I lost like 15-2. The guy I was playing just slayed me. It was awful. The second game, I was down 13-2, but I came back and won it 15-13. The third game, I was down again, 14-5 and came back and won it 21-19. After the game, my dad asked me how I did that. How I could be behind in a match so far and rally back to win.  I thought for several minutes about if I should tell him how.  Really, Mrs. Baragar, I debated if I should tell my dad how I did it. Then I thought, ‘oh, what the heck, why not?’, so I told him ‘CS:GO’.

I will interrupt J’s story to state that CS:GO is a game on Steam that is enormously popular worldwide. It can be played alone, or in a Massive Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) format. It involves terrorists, counter-terrorists, weaponry and lots of blood. It’s relatively realistic in its animations. J is a highly ranked player in this game (he will somewhat proudly, yet abashedly tell you he has logged in excess of 800 hours playing this game in the past two years)

“When dad asked me what I meant I told him that when I play CS:GO, sometimes I fall way behind, but I’ve learned that if I can begin to mount a comeback, I can get into the head of my opponent and it will start to destroy his confidence and ultimately his game, and I CAN comeback and win; even when it seems impossible.”

What seemed like an interesting anecdote stuck with me. I had seriously underestimated the implications that games and gaming have played on the development of the students in my classes. I know they play games. I know they love games. I know they value games. I didn’t realize that games were potentially such a major contributor to their worldview. Admittedly, this story is above average in its metacognition for a typical fifteen year-old boy; but awareness of the influence is not the cause of the influence. Whether J could articulate where he had learned the lesson, the lesson had been learned.

Gibson & Sodeman (2014) state explicitly that “Another possible way for educators to speak the millennial language is the concept of gamification” (p.69). My recent experiences in my classroom indicate that it is becoming increasingly necessary. Whether Generation X feels that games are worthwhile or a waste of time, they are here, they are part of modern culture and they are influencing and shaping the way our students see the world; and that includes school.

The second question asked what schools are currently receiving an “A” in. I believe that schools are doing a lot of things right. First and foremost, despite our limited budgets, we are continuing to evolve our teaching practices to include blended learning environments like Google Classroom or Moodle. Teachers, for the most part, in my experience understand that infusion of technology is necessary. A decade ago there were a lot more teachers who were inclined to buck the “computers” trend; but that has lessened. Though we are not always fast to make a move (and I’m not advocating that we should be; there are many shiny things that offer little to no value in the classroom), we are adjusting the course of education. With each passing year, we bring new ideas into classrooms and test out a few new things. When every teacher in a school tries out a couple new things in a school year, the end result is actually many new things that were tried!

Technology Concern – Learning Commons/Makerspace – D2L Post – July 12, 2016

I had previously posted a couple concerns I have in the area of technology within my school, one being whether or not to make a move toward 3D printing, and the second being with regards to what I consider to be excessive paper consumption for a school of my size. After a visit from Beckett, our Little Professor today, and reconsidering game-based learning and gamification models in learning, it feels to me as though my umbrella problem that I am trying to articulate is the need for a Makerspace, or a more hands-on environment within my school facility than we currently have.

There are some renovations taking place within my school’s facility this summer as we have reached capacity, but the new K-12 school being built in Strathmore will not open until sometime in the 2017-2018 school year. This means we must take measures to accommodate all students temporarily, and so, understandably, they are reluctant to add portables to our building.  The short version of the story is that there is space upstairs, across the hallway from our current library being potentially renovated to become classroom space and I have requested that my lab be moved to this area so that I may assist our librarian (she is an educational assistant) with transforming our library into a Learning Commons/Makerspace environment. To be honest, I think the chances of my actually moving upstairs are slim, but my initial request has been made, and as I consider the discussions we have had in class over the past two days, I feel like the need to make this change is more urgent.  Kelly’s experience in school, then his career in the auto industry, coupled with Beckett’s unique learning needs has pushed this back to the forefront of my consideration.

3D printing definitely fits into the construct of a Makerspace environment, and collaboration that can occur through software suites like Google Docs and the other Google Apps for Education allow me to address the other issues I’ve previously mentioned as challenges, but in terms of the actual problem I am going to choose to articulate, it is going to be the need for a hands-on, flexible, thought-provoking, creative maker environment to allow the creative, inventive and entrepreneurial spirit of our students to have a space where these qualities are welcomed, embraced and encouraged.

Grigsby states that “as more and more districts focus their attention on digital acquisitions, the need for storage and shelves will naturally diminish while the need for space in which students experiment, create and explore will increase” (p.103).

I am going to utilize the precious resources, discussion and Dr. Baum’s intention that we leave her course with a genuinely valuable document to attempt to further the progress we’ve made into the Makerspace movement in the 2015-2016 school year.

References

Gibson, L. A., PhD., & Sodeman, W. A., PhD. (2014). Millennials and technology: Addressing the communication gap in education and practice. Organization Development Journal, 32(4), 63-75. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1624966494?accountid=9838

Grigsby, S. (2015). Re-imagining the 21st century school library: From storage space to active learning space. Tech Trends, 59(3) 103-106.