One of the major trends within education is the idea of developing personalized learning tools that allow a student to develop skills at their own pace. But teaching a teacher how best to use newly created game-based tools takes a different kind of professional development.
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One of the major trends within education is the idea of developing personalized learning tools that allow a student to develop skills at their own pace. But teaching a teacher how best to use newly created game-based tools takes a different kind of professional development.
That’s where Arizona State University’s Quest2Teach comes in.
The program aims to put prospective teachers–and ASU trains one of the largest cadres of new teachers in the U.S. every year– in a different space by developing and using games that prepare them to know and be able to reflect on essential skills, starting on day one.
One of the challenges of scaling-up games-based learning in schools is the lack of exposure to best practices to new and early-career teachers. The Quest2Teach program is a collaboration between Arizona State University’s Center for Games & Impact and the Sanford Inspire Program at the Mary Fulton Teachers College that uses research-based game environments to help teachers modernize and improve their pedagogical and content knowledge by simulating their future teaching practice.
In this video we interviewed researchers, game developers, teacher educators, and undergraduate students about their experiences with an innovative teacher education program and followed the implementation of a new literacy game.
We asked those behind Quest2Teach what game developers can learn from the ASU work. Those interested in what teachers can take away from the Quest2Teach project can find more at the Institute of Play’s website.
gamesandlearning.org: What kind of training should game developers plan on producing if they want teachers to use your game / system?
Quest2Teach: The design of games and their training must take into consideration where these games fit into the larger ecology of where it will be implemented, so strategic research and positioning beforehand is key. For example, with Quest2Teach, we found that placement in the scope and sequence of the Teachers College program of study was key for making the games relevant to the undergraduates’ needs. Because these games bridge between theory and practice, they need to be positioned ‘just-in-time’ with respect to the teacher training timeline, rather than presented ‘just-in-case’.
gamesandlearning.org: What role have developers played in shaping the professional development plans? Is their involvement helpful? Necessary?
Quest2Teach: All of our games come from a unique collaboration and foundation of learning scientists (Center for Games & Impact), domain experts and teachers (Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College), and game d