Throughout this year you have heard me say, “Meet them where they are.” Chapter seven is about doing just that. While we need to design lessons (or games) for a group of students targeting their general developmental level, knowledge, and skill, because each child possesses unique qualities and characteristics, contemporary education is focused on meeting the needs of all children. This places the teacher in the position of designing learning experiences for both the larger group (the class) and each individual student.
In this chapter Willingham addresses the research on individual differences. He notes that “Children are more alike than different in terms of how they think and learn.” However, he also says “It’s obvious that children are different.” So how are they different?
How do these ideas factor into how you design a game?
In this chapter we explored that children are different from each other. They are different in so many ways but specifically their ways of learning. Students have so many different ways they learn and have so many different ways they are talented and intelligent. If a classroom was filled with children who were all the same it would be easy to teach. You would never have to use different learning methods based on the student. However, that would make learning very boring and would not allow for a diverse learning environment. Student’s talents and intelligences are what make them so unique and diverse. Even though it may be difficult to find learning methods that will help the students, it’s worth it to introduce them to different ways of learning.
Knowing that students learn differently can be useful when designing a game because it allows you to make it more diverse. For example, in our game we can apply different roles in our game that highlight different talents. We have an area for talents in art, music, science, reading, and math. We also have different player roles in the game that allow for different talents to shine. Those being presenters, listeners, and leaders.
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