Learning how to play!

In the past few months, I have worked closely with a colleague of mine on designing an undergraduate interdisciplinary course on Education and reform in Egypt. Our aim in the course was to answer four pressing questions for education (in our humble opinions) that we believe can help look at reform in Egypt through a different lens. One of the foundational areas of the course is to cover the major learning theories in an attempt to help the students answer the question; How do people learn?

As this is an area that my colleague has taught extensively and had a great depth of understanding for the subject matter, we decided to be a little bit creative and to think of a game, simulation or fun activity to simulate or help the students gain an understanding of each learning theory we covered. There will be a follow-up post that we will co-write in the near future once the course is over to reflect on the whole process and give you an insight on how we went about it.

The reason i am sharing this early, however, is because I wanted to share with you some of the work the students have submitted, as I was extremely impressed by their deep reflections and level of synthesis.

So I am including the links to two blog reflections submitted by some of our students. Their assignment was to write one sentence they think summarizes their persona. They were then asked to go away and play a game of their choice and reflect on whether they felt their personality was affected by the rules or environment that the game is providing. They were also asked to note any links they can establish between the game, playing experience and any learning theories discussed in class.

Blog post 1:
https://nohafikry.wordpress.com/2015/09/15/core-4099-blog-post-1-game-and-identity-who-am-i/

Blog post 2:
https://girlbehindthebooks.wordpress.com/2015/09/19/piaget-dont-play-flappy-bird/

Instructors:

Sherif Osman @the_sosman

Joyce Rafla @joujraf

Please send them your comments.