News Article Review - ChicagoQuest

Media around the world seem interested in what is going on in 21^st century classrooms. The Chicago Sun-Times, a 2011 Pullitzer Prize winning newspaper, has recently highlighted some of the game-playing innovations in the reporting of the opening of new school buildings in the city. ChicagoQuest Charter School was profiled as having spent $8.4 million in renovations which included a “SMALLab. This “Situated Multimedia Arts Learning Lab” uses a video projector to project an image representing a problem onto the floor, allowing kids to literally walk through and amid the problem as they try to figure it out. …”embodied learning”.” This apparently allows students the opportunity to engage with 21^st century skills that include “Systems thinking”, teamwork and time management.

Unique school - Chicago
Photo by  Brian Jackson

The ultimate goal of this educational undertaking appears to be the production of students who are able to engage with the world around them. Transformation of teaching from learning because it is in the textbook towards a model of studying something to build or create something real life would appear to underpin their stated purpose for establishing the new school environment. To achieve this, teachers are working with two game designers to incorporate game-like pedagogy into their curriculum.

Ramifications of the immersion of students from the middle to upper levels of education have only been presented in a positive light by this education reporter, Rosalind Rossi. She indicates that seventh graders are achieving more highly on reading and math exams. Since the school only starts in sixth grade, more research would need to be presented for my sceptical nature to be silenced. There would certainly seem to be an immediate motivating factor involved with a curriculum that is promoted on the basis that games are good and failure is fun. Over the longer term however, will school results be as comparable, which in the harsh light of reality, can determine the future directions of participating students.

Reference:

ChicagoQuest promotes game-playing at school - Chicago Sun-Times. (n.d.). News articles and headlines from the Chicago Sun-Times . Retrieved September 11, 2011, from http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/7395724-418/chicagoquest-promotes-game-playing-at-school.html