Overcoming Resistance to Games and Simulations
Recently, I wrote an article for ASTD’s Learning Circuits titled Barriers to Adopting Games in Corporate Environments.
The concept behind the article is that there are some major reasons why games, which should be readily adopted as efficient, effective learning tools are not being adopted.
So, here is the list of the reasons why they are not being adopted, go to the article to see the detail, and a few more reasons:Barriers to Adopting Games in Corporate Environments.
- Perception of games as only entertainment
- Not understanding of the mechanisms in games that make them educational
- Perception that playing games is easy and, therefore, not valuable
Also, if you want to see how simulations have been adopted in an inexpensive and effective manner, check out this research paper.
One interesting piece in the paper is about mastery of content which states that mastery is…:
combination of proficiency and retention – meaning that a true master
is not only proficient (he / she could pass any test), but that master
has the ability to retain and apply the knowledge in a wide range of
conditions. When you leave a class, you may feel like a master because
you passed a test. But only after you apply the information learned
dozens of times in varying conditions do you truly come close to being
a master.
The way that can be taught is through experience both actual and through simulations/games. And, with lots of examples, as I wrote about in the piece What Instructional Designers can learn from IBM’s Watson.
The time is now for multiple examples, experiential learning in an online environment and for moving toward mastery of content as it relates to application and not just memorization.
