We are giving mid-term exams here at Mercyhurst this week. I don't think much of traditional methods for testing student knowledge and was, therefore, intrigued by a quote I recently found in a much longer article on assessment:
"Good tests make the student feel smart or skilled, if not both. They make the student feel like they're applying what they've learned. The puzzle inherent in a test should flow naturally from the existing, well-established content of the course. While students should feel like they can bring their existing skills to the task at hand, they should also feel like a suitable challenge has been placed in front of them."
I like that. Imagine a test so well-designed that the student would actually appreciate the challenge the test presented! The implied lesson here is that tests ought to be about the learning and not about the grade, about mastering a body of knowledge and not about punching a ticket.
Many of you probably agree with me that such a test would be one worth taking. You probably also think that such tests are impossible to design. I have to beg to differ. Such "tests" are routinely developed by a very unique group of people -- game designers.
See, I lied before. The quote above is not from an educator, it is from Game Developer Magazine. The article it was taken from is called "Make Better Bosses" by Damion Schubert (For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of a "boss" in games, I would refer you to the Wikipedia entry on bosses). The original version of Schubert's article read like this:
Many of you probably agree with me that such a test would be one worth taking. You probably also think that such tests are impossible to design. I have to beg to differ. Such "tests" are routinely developed by a very unique group of people -- game designers.
See, I lied before. The quote above is not from an educator, it is from Game Developer Magazine. The article it was taken from is called "Make Better Bosses" by Damion Schubert (For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of a "boss" in games, I would refer you to the Wikipedia entry on bosses). The original version of Schubert's article read like this:
"Good boss fights make the player feel smart or skilled, if not both. They make the player feel like they're applying what they've learned. The puzzle inherent in a boss fight should flow naturally from the existing, well-established mechanics of the game. While players should feel like they can bring their existing skills to the task at hand, they should also feel like a suitable challenge has been placed in front of them."
All I did was replace "boss" with "test" and "player" with "student". What really struck me was how obvious the comparison was when I first read it. Of course, it might just be me (I have spent a good bit of time thinking about games and education over the last year) but I am hardly the first person to make the connection between tests of knowledge in a classroom and the challenges posed by most games (See the short interview with Prof. Gee below). It seems like something worth thinking about...
