Case Study

Play-based Professional Learning Connects Classroom Teachers with Community Educators

"The teachers... go through 12, 23 years of schooling and now everything has changed."

“The teachers… go through 12, 23 years of schooling and now everything has changed.”

In the afterschool space, a new breed of professional development programs is expanding learning opportunities for urban youth by cultivating partnerships between classroom teachers and community-based educators.

Through programs like the STEM Educators Academy, formal and informal educators are working together to design and deliver aligned curriculum that is engaging, rigorous and inquiry-based. Games have a lot of potential to bridge formal and informal learning environments, and game design offers a process through which educators can begin exploring this unique type of collaboration.

In the STEM Educators Academy, games provided one way to support powerful collaboration. TASC partnered with two New York City-based cultural organizations to provide professional development to formal and informal STEM educators in some of the city’s most disadvantaged communities. Educators came to the program in teams of three, one teacher and two community educators, who engage in joint professional development and coaching.

There were two strands, since each cultural partner’s professional development offering was based on their particular approach to innovative STEM teaching: New York Hall of Science led a strand focused on design-based activities, and Institute of Play led a strand on game-based activities — with the common focus of using collaborative teaching to improve STEM instruction in school and after-school programs.

In this video, we visited the STEM Educators Academy at Institute of Play and the New York Hall of Science to look at similarities between the design-based strand and the game-based one.

Based on their work, we asked the two groups behind the Academy to answer a few questions of the effort. Those interested in what teachers can take away from the Quest2Teach project can find more at the Institute of Play’s website.

gamesandlearning.org: What kind of training should game developers plan on producing if they want teachers to use your game / system?

The After School Corporation: Teachers may be nervous and uncomfortable using and implementing digital learning tools in the classroom, therefore training that articulates and engages participants in how digital learning tools can align to learning goals, strengthen instruction, and increase student understanding is necessary. Training that includes specific examples of how teachers are using digital learning tools in their classroom would be useful if not necessary.

Institute of Play: Training has to be a two-way street. Developers need to train educators on how to integrate technology meaningfully: making sure that technology is aligned to rigorous learning goals and also that it is used to do something that digital tools can do better than non-digital ones, like build models, or explore complex problems, or test out different solutions. But developers also need training from educators in understanding what classrooms are like, and then use that feedback to create resources that educators can use around games, like assessment tools or add-on activities.

gamesandlearning.org: What role have developers played in shaping the professional development plans? Is their involvement helpful? Necessary?

The After School Corporation: Developers should have input in professional development, but if developers do not have an understanding of the participants (teachers and community educators) or have not provided professional development to teachers before, then their involvement may not be necessary.

In the case of Institute of Play, they are developers and their experience providing ongoing professional development to teachers, observing and coaching, strengthened their professional development offering. Their input in the planning process was crucial especially because TASC had a limited understanding of game-based learning. They were an important thought partner. But on the other hand I think of other developers, large tech companies for example, who would like schools to adopt and incorporate digital learning tools in the classroom without knowledge of the reality, challenges, and professional development needed for implementation.

Institute of Play: Teachers usually don’t need developers to tell them what the classroom is like, or what to do in there. But developers do have something that is very helpful in the context of a school: better processes for collaboration. Many of the practices that Institute of Play brings to the workshops we facilitate are based on processes that designers and developer are familiar with.

Even things as simple as being explicit with your team about what you’re working on and what’s blocking you is a really valuable practice in a school environment. Developers can help teachers learn how to design experiences collaboratively around a shared set of goals, so their involvement can be especially useful when the goal of the professional development is to promote collaboration.

gamesandlearning.org: How prescriptive should game developers be in suggesting lessons and objectives for teachers that use their games?

The After School Corporation: Examples of lessons and objectives are always useful and necessary for “buy-in” of a product. As a former teacher, I think teachers become skeptical of new curriculum and products because there are so many on the market that claim to do a wide variety of things (improve student achievement, improve student reading while being fun, improve student understanding of math while being more engaging etc.) that teachers become turned off.

Having concrete (and free) example of how a teacher used “x” product in “y” lesson with “z” objective with this result can help in buy in. In my experience providing professional development to community educators (informal educators working in youth serving organizations), the more specific and prescriptive in the initial stages you can be, the better.

For example, providing community educators specific examples of how digital learning tools are used in the classroom increases understanding and ability to implement.

Institute of Play:  Developers should share examples of lessons and objective. It’s helpful if the examples include activities that happen outside the game as well – things like warm-ups and reflective conversation starters. The goal is to give educators modifiable resources that students can use before or after playing the game, so that educators can create learning experiences outside the game. This opens up a lot of opportunities for teachers and community-based educators to collaborate to create connected lessons, and for teachers and developers to collaborate to improve a game and associated tools.

gamesandlearning.org: How can this program be implemented elsewhere? Is the program scalable? What would be some challenges that one may face?

The After School Corporation: The STEM Educators Academy assumes the existence of schools community partners, ideally co-located in the school building and interested in aligning resources and activities. As the number of publicly-funded and fee-based after-school programs proliferate across the country, it is easy to imagine this program going to scale.

What is needed is an interest on the part of formal educators to explore innovative learning approaches and embrace the value-add of community educators and after-school programs. After-school resources and more time for expanded learning exist, but need to be harnessed and aligned with the school day and formal education system.

Institute of Play:  What’s so powerful about the STEM Educators Academy, and the reason we believe it is scalable, is that it provides a way for educators to leverage each others’ strengths. Classroom teachers bring content knowledge and a deep understanding of how students learn. Community-based educators bring hands-on inquiry and a sense of how interests drive learning.

By bringing them together to collaboratively design games and lessons, we also are creating a space for them to reflect on their practice and what they can learn from each other.

Collaboration is not easy: it takes time, and requires a strong commitment to good listening and discussion practices. It’s important for both sides to see the benefits of working together.

 

Additional Resources

About the Video Case Series

Data from the 2012 Joan Ganz Cooney Center national teacher survey showed that few teachers are exposed to games-based learning in their pre-service training, and that teachers usually provide their own ongoing professional learning on games and learning. Thus, as a follow-up on the 2012 series of video case studies on teachers using digital games in the classroom, this series looks at how teachers can be exposed to games through various forms of PD.  From a game-based approach to teacher education at ASU to play-based professional learning for informal learning environments at TASC, this series takes the viewer on a journey of innovative and novel approaches to teacher PD.

The series is a project of the Games and Learning Publishing Council and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  The series is produced by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center and the Institute of Play.