Blog Post Idea for the Value of Studying Games as a Graduate Student
I think I want my blog post to assert the following: The value of studying games as a graduate student, specifically from the lens of a M.Ed student, is that it affirms the role of play in the classroom in a time when standardization of curriculum, learning, and assessment are prevalent. In some ways, studying games and the research behind it, gives freedom to educators to use play, guilt free, in the classroom, in the best interest of their students. Dr. P., do you think this is too broad?
I can relate to your idea of play allowing freedom to educators to design lessons that are more geared towards the interests of their students. In the handful of opportunities where I was able to more creatively design games for my students, they were almost always met with great approval. Students had more fun in those lessons.
As for the constraints of standardized curriculum, I wrote something similar in my blog on "What Play Can Teach Us About Writing." Our approach in education has been to "teach to the [standardized] test." This approach often takes all the creativity and personality out of writing, and students start to develop a negative attitude towards it when it is a prescribed formula instead of their own unique expression. Students are growing up and not seeing themselves in their writing; it is no wonder that they start to despise it. We ought to at all times approach writing as a creative act where the writer is an artist at play, expressing their own unique creation.
