My problem with "just-in-time" learning

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"Just-in-time (JIT) learning" is the newish buzzword you hear often in association with video games and learning. It's a deceptively simple idea suggesting that learning is better when it is "on-demand." You encounter a problem, you're given the information to solve it, and you solve it then and there. No need to memorize a set of facts ahead of time that you may or may not use in the future, no need for abstract concepts that have no bearing on the immediate demands of the situation, no need for decontextualized facts and figures. As far as I know, this concept is assumed to be right and I have never seen the concept criticized before, but I'm going to go ahead and say: I have a problem with JIT learning on two levels: 1) It's overly vague and 2) It often doesn't work.

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A role for exogenous games?

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Last year, I was offered to teach a class called on grammar and structural linguistics, which I accepted with some hesitance because I considered it a bit outside of my comfort zone. I've taught sociolinguistics and communications courses before, but this is hardcore linguistics, requiring knowledge not just of grammar but also of how to analyze the syntactic structure of sentences using grammar trees. What made it even more intimidating was that these were four hour courses, and I had to make it interesting to the students. Games, then.
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The Self-Imposed Challenge

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I've often experimented with assessment in my classes. I once--somewhat masochistically--asked students to come up with questions for me to take as a midterm. (The point of it was to turn the idea of a midterm on its head, not to find out what students know, but what they don't know, and why. It's a very effective way of finding out gaps in their knowledge and be able to fill it quickly. It was a small class, fortunately, and I changed the format the next time round, asking the students to make their own midterms for each other.)

For all the talk about games-based learning and gamification of the classroom (not sure about the latter yet, will blog about it in due time), I'm surprised the question of assessment hasn't come up as often as it should have. If it does come up, it's usually in the form of using games as assessment (e.g., designing a game that demonstrates your understanding of something). Having worked with some assessment gurus in the past, I'm always pushing myself to rethink assessment and to avoid traditional forms of assessments like the plague, so a few ideas inspired by games have seeped into my head over the years.

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Highlights from AERA

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Finally had time to process some thoughts on this prior AERA in New Orleans. I missed half of the conference because I didn't fly in till Sunday, but I might try to attend more next time because the ones I did go to were quite amazing. Beyond the amazing food, weather and company I had, there were also some genuinely exciting talks that I attended. Here are some highlights.
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Recommended: Engineering Play

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imageInterest in the research and design of digital games for learning has been accelerating over the past ten years. Various groups—including private corporations, the MacArthur Foundation and the White House—have provided incentives for researchers to tap into the immense success of the video game industry and find ways of using games to re-invigorate the waning motivation among students in schools today. Among the arguments in support of using games is that games are simply better suited for the Millennial generation who has grown up with technology. At the same time, integrating games into a traditional schooling environment can be challenging because games do not fit easily into the school’s institutional system, which has its own concerns for evaluation, grade benchmarks and other accountability measures. It is against this backdrop that Mizuko Ito’s Engineering Play is set.
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