Creating Spaces for Learning

Final exams are upon us and with reviews out of the way, my students and I took the opportunity to enjoy some "creative play" time.  The focus for our final two days of instruction was to answer this question: How do you define LEARNING?

The definitions, as you can imagine, were wonderful and varied.  Several students seemed to answer with the exact dictionary definition, but others add terms like "teaching" and "application" to their definitions. I actually scribbled down my own definition only to scratch it out after hearing how deeply my students thought about theirs. 

However, we ended this conversation wondering if LEARNING is restricted to certain spaces or if we, as learners, restrict our own learning based on the spaces we occupy. 

To answer this question, then, I set up stations in my room where students were able to "creatively play" several different video games.  On one television students were building in Minecraft.  On another television, students were creating goo bridges in World of Goo.  And on a final set, students were applying physics knowledge in Portal.

So what did they learn?  Some student testimonials...

"In Minecraft, I learned how to use resources to build new things."
"In World of Goo, I learned to use anything I could find to get to my destination."
"In Portal, you have to think about forward momentum and think about how to solve the puzzle...think outside the box."

Though I gave my students only a brief opportunity to be creative in these virtual spaces, I think it's safe to say that we create our own spaces for LEARNING!  Even in spaces that attempt to restrict our learning, we can create our own opportunities to learn.  With these video games, the game designers have created a space with rules and limitations, but the students found ways to learn inside those spaces.  As teachers, we must create and cultivate spaces in our classrooms that allow students be creative because they will, quite honestly, create their own spaces without us!