Five Questions: David Shaffer, game scientist

I became interested in David Shaffer's work reading the MacArthur blog, Digital Media and Learning.

Given my interest in philosophy, his use of the word "epistemology" in conjunction with gaming jumped out at me because, as a method of knowing, it fits a kind of embodied, embedded knowing that people ranging from dancers to studio furniture makers experience all the time. The notion that we know through doing is also challenging ideas about sentient, intelligent behavior long held, for example, by philosophers and scientists working in artificial intelligence. Gaming, or knowing through doing, is a way of approaching old problems afresh.

I recently posed a few questions to David, who graciously agreed to answer them for readers of IFblog.

The following is a continuation of an occasional email interview series, "Five Questions." Other interviews may be found in the "five questions" category in the category cloud on the blog.

Thanks David,

Wayne

1. What attracted you to computer gaming as an academic field?

What attracted me to the field was the fact that computers have created a world of global competition, where passing standardized tests only prepares you for standardized work that can be done for less money by someone a mouse-click away. The only good jobs in the digital age are for those who can think in innovative and creative ways to solve complex problems.

And that's just what good computer games can help children learn to do.

Innovative thinking comes from working on real problems and talking with experts to understand how they think about solving them. That's how doctors, lawyers, architects, engineers, and other experts learn to use professional judgment to solve problems that don't always have standard answers.

Now computer games make it possible for kids to play at solving the same kinds of problems, from designing and running a zoo to managing a presidential campaign. That can only happen, though, if we think in new ways about what kids really need to know and how they need to learn it. To help your kids get ready for life in a changing world, we need to think about education in a new way. And computer games are one of the best ways to start doing that.

2. Could you elaborate on the meaning of epistemic games? What in your view are the "epistemologies of the digital age?"

Epistemology is the study of what it means to know something. The word epistemology comes from the Greek root words episteme, meaning "knowledge" or "understanding," and logos, meaning "word," "thought," "study," or even "meaning" itself. Epistemology is the study of knowledge, and in my work I argue that computers create both the means and the necessity to fundamentally rethink what it means to know something-and thus what is worth learning and how we teach it.

Computers are creating a world that places a premium on innovation and creative thinking, and computer and video games make it possible to prepare young people for life in that world-but only once we understand how people learn to think as innovators. We have to develop the tools to help young people learn the epistemologies of creative innovation. One way to do this is through epistemic games: games that are fundamentally about learning to think in innovative ways. This is surely not the only way to use new technologies to change education for the better, but it is the kind of solution we need: one that uses technology to think about learning in new ways appropriate for a postindustrial, global economy and society.

Computers give children access to new worlds: to parts of the real world that are too expensive,  complicated, or dangerous for them except through computer simulations, and to worlds of imagination where they can play with social and physical reality in new ways. The virtual worlds of the digital age require thinking about learning in new ways.

We have to move away from thinking about education in terms of the traditional organization of schools. Schools as we know them developed in a particular place and time to meet a specific set of social and economic needs. But times have changed, and the way we need to think about education has changed too. The academic disciplines of history, English, math, and science are not the only way to divide up the world of things worth knowing, the forty-minute blocks of time in which they are currently taught using lecture and recitation are not the only way to learn, and standardized tests of facts and basic skills are not the only way to decide who has learned what they were supposed to learn.

To prepare for life in a world that values innovation rather than standardization, young people need to learn to think like innovators. Innovative professionals in the real world have ways of thinking and working that are just as coherent-and just as fundamental-as any of the academic disciplines. The work of creative professionals is organized around what I call epistemic frames: collections of skills,  knowledge, identities, values, and epistemology that professionals use to think in innovative ways. Innovators learn these epistemic frames through professional training that is very different from traditional academic classrooms because innovative thinking means more than just knowing the right answers on a test. It also means having real-world skills, high standards and professional values, and a particular way of thinking about problems and justifying solutions.

Epistemic games are games that recreate these ways of learning to give students a chance to learn the ways of thinking of the digital age.

3. How would you say that school age children and young adults learn differently than they have in the recent past? And why is this important to discovery?

Well, as I argue in How Computer Games Help Children Learn, to get along in the digital age, our children need to learn innovative thinking, and that means they need higher levels of reading, writing, literature, science, mathematics, and the arts than they get in schools today. So reformers suggest that we need to add depth and rigor to our schools and our standardized tests, to use school funding more effectively, and improve our teaching force.

The problem is that simply doing more of what we've been doing only better won't get us education for innovation and creativity in the 21st century. To cultivate creativity in our schools we need to think inside the box. We need to look to the same technologies that create global competition and place a premium on innovation in the first place.

We can already see the possibilities in some of the commercial computer games that children play today. When my eight-year-old daughter plays "Zoo Tycoon" or "The Political Machine," she uses more complex mathematics, science, civics, and reading skills than she sees in school-in some cases more complex than she'll see there for years to come. In games like these, what matters is solving problems, not remembering facts, staying afloat in a sea of information, taking calculated risks, and thinking in creative ways, not answering predictable questions.

If we want our children to learn to innovate, we need to design and use games like these to teach creative thinking.

The power of computer games is that they let players live in simulated worlds-worlds of imagination, of adventure, of complex thinking, and, yes, sometimes worlds of violence. But we can also build computer games that let players live in worlds where people learn innovation.

It turns out we already know a lot about how people learn innovative thinking. People learn to be innovators by working on real problems and talking with experts to understand how they think about solving them. That's how doctors, lawyers, architects, engineers, and others learn to use professional judgment to solve problems that don't always have standard answers.

Now, well-designed computer games make it possible for children (and adults) to play at solving the same kinds of problems: working as an engineer to design characters for an animated film; working as reporters to produce an online newsmagazine about science and technology; working as urban planners to redesign their city; or working as graphic designers to produce a museum exhibit.

In these games, young people develop knowledge and skills the way innovative workers do: by working on problems that matter. But not just by solving real problems any old way they'd like. These games are rigorous-even more rigorous than school-because the ways of thinking that creative and innovative people use in their work require more than just basic facts and basic skills.

4. The ideaFestival emphasizes that innovation happens at the intersection of disciplines. To what other academic disciplines might you compare your work?

I am formally in a department of educational psychology, but I was trained as an historian and as a media researcher. I worked as a teacher and teacher-trainer, and now part of my work is as a game designer. I am sometimes called a Learning Scientist, and sometimes a Game Scientist. As part of my work I have had the chance to learn about a variety of professions, including architecture, engineering, journalism, urban planning, and medicine. In fact, at one time I had an appointment in the department of dermatology at Harvard Medical School. So there are many fields and disciplines that intersect with the work I do.

5. I believe the a question well-asked is half answered. Have you heard any exceptionally good questions lately?

I think a critical question that faces anyone who cares about education in a changing world is: "What is worth knowing?" That is far more important, in my opinion, than the question we usually ask these days" "How can we improve test scores in reading and math?"

Comments

[Rob]

Since learning and knowing affect brain connections and development, I think it will be interesting to see how the first generation to grow up with computers and video games as daily parts of their lives fare later in life. Will they have any sort of structural changes in their brains that make them more or less vulnerable to certain cognitive problems and diseases later in life?

When you blur epistemic boundaries and use tools for different things than they were used in the past, it could have long ranging consequences. Or it could just as easily turn out not to matter. I don't know. It's just something I think about sometimes.