Observations/Games & Learning

Dr. Mike Searson of Kean University
Reflects on His Observations Between
Games and Learning

simSchool: When did you first become aware of the potential for games/simulations for learning and what was it that piqued your interest?

MS: As a child, I was always interested in games whether board games or just playing games outside because I realized that games were something one could learn from …and they were fun! In college, I became interested in early childhood education and recognized how important games were for all children’s learning. I have found that games are meaningful to a child’s life as well as to anyone who plays them. My interest in games continued in my graduate research at the Institute of Cognitive Studies at Rutgers University where I focused my thesis on baseball as an environment for complex cognitive processing. In my research on baseball, I found, for example, that hitters bring much more than a bat with them when they go to the plate. They have plans, predictions, and problem-solving strategies, although this processing may be at the tacit level. So when Yogi Berra says “I can’t think and hit at the same time,” it’s true, to some extent. He, too, exercises complex cognitive processing as a successful batter (after all, one has only 1/3 to 1/2 of a second to react), he’s just not aware of the cognitive skills he’s employing. When you interview a hitter (or pitcher) after a key moment in a game, they’ll often refer to an encyclopedia memory of past confrontations they’ve had and develop their current strategy from prior knowledge.

MS: Games challenge the player, allowing her/him to work through a complex problem or event. Not only young people, but a generation of children who started playing in the 70’s are now avid game players as adults. Another reason for this fascination is that people find playing a game a meaningful and social activity.

	Games challenge the player, allowing her/him to work through a complex problem or event.

They play in a group, share codes, and share information. There are networks of people (sometimes forming clans) all over the world that go online to share. Through this collaboration, gamers are pushing their thinking, building on what they know to learn even more, similar to what Vygosky called the zone of proximal development.1 Another reason why games are so compelling is that players have “emotional power.” As game players press the joystick they cause an event to happen, receive feedback, and then they have to react. If you watch, you can see players act out the games they play. They press the button, make facial expressions, and shift their body to left or right. Players are totally immersed in the whole environment – verbally, socially, and bodily. This is the emotional power! Players are not even aware of the learning that playing requires. Learning includes deep cognition to process what is happening and make a decision on how to move based on a complex set of possibilities, gaining implicit and tacit knowledge as they problem solve situations and solutions. It is the tacit knowledge - subconscious - and the implicit processing of knowledge that ultimately contributes to what they learn.