Druids and bears

As a Druid, one of my quests made me teleport to Moonglade to heed the Great Bear Spirit. That teleporting ability was really rewarding, even more so that it took me to a completely different place. Further, I have been browsing the web for information about the game over the past few weeks: I knew that Druids could change into bears and therefore, I found that quest quite motivating for me (in fact, I now remember reading about that in the game's book and that capability prompted me to make my character a Druid in the first place).

I just couldn't wait to learn how to do that... Well, actually I could... I mean I had to since that was only the first quest of a series which should lead me to learn that: a perfect implementation of the Achievement Principle since this fascinating ability needs to be deserved (Gee 2003).

Developing my character

Unlike with my Mage character, I haven't forgotten to go back to the master of Druids to learn new skills: this is the perfect answer to the killing boredom which I had been feeling for the last few playing days. I chose several spells that added variety to my capabilities and made me change my approaches to fighting. I also improved the spells I commonly used which helped me kill my opponents more easily (until, I suspect, I cross harder creatures on my way).

Learning how to properly use the mini-map tracking feature also helped me improve as a herborist and made me realise that my progress could be tracked via the Character Information panel.

More importantly, my choices with regards to the way I develop as a character in the game are a very important learning principle, very well explained by Gee's tripartite play of identity (2003, pp. 51-71).

Implications for educators

Too often, teachers want students to solve a problem their way or the one they deem the best. Unfortunately, that's not necessarily the strategy that fits all students better and can potentially impede their progress in a dangerous way. On the other hand, helping students learn several strategies can strengthen their knowledge structures which I remember was very helpful when I was studying Physics and Chemistry: I could use the most appropriate strategy according to the specifics of the problem at hand and I was also more confident in my approaches since I could support my findings in several ways.

I think teachers shouldn't prevent students from using their preferred strategy or learning style but at the same time, they should still prompt them to learn better ones.

I believe assessment can play an important part into this: the use of the best approach (if any) could be awarded more marks while the use of a different one would be given less marks. Such a design illustrates Gee's Ongoing Learning and “Psychosocial Moratorium” Principles (2003) in that it would be less daunting for students than simply requiring them to quit using their preferred strategies for better ones but would still encourage them to do so.

When several strategies are available for a given task, students are usually taught the easiest ones first before learning more powerful and sophisticated ones. I remember instances of that in my scholarship when we were taught a more powerful formulae to solve a Physics problem or when we were allowed to start using scientific calculators to perform routine tasks such as drawing the graph of an equation to check our results against it. Just like my case, signs of boredom ("average boredom" among class students perhaps) may be an excellent indicator of the appropriate time to teach a new strategy.

References:

Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York, Palgrave Macmillan