How Games Foster Learning

This week in Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning renowned media scholar James Gee talks with Heather Chaplin, author of Smartbomb, about how games influence learning.

Q: I know you always say you’re not advocating the use of games for learning in particular, but rather that games offer a model for effective learning. Why are games such an important model for us to be looking at? Why are they a good model for understanding learning?

A: First of all, it’s a good model because games are about problem solving, and they’re not about just learning facts. You learn the facts as tools to solve the problems. And we know if you teach people just facts, you have no guarantee they can solve problems, but if you teach them to solve problems, we do know they have to learn the facts to solve the problem. That’s all games are: sets of problems in an interesting environment.

The second thing is games give situated meaning. That is, they tie words to images, actions, dialog, experience, not just other words. We know from research on the brain that humans learn better when words are associated with images and actions and experiences and not just definitions or other words.

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