Teaching with Games: The New Literature

"To be Mario or not to be Mario.  That is the question!"

Reflecting on the Great Literature Great Games summer course I taught this year, I have come to some very interesting conclusions about my own teaching and education in general. 

• Video Games are the new literature! - While the majority of my students took my summer class because they liked to play video games, I found that they enjoyed spending time reading games as text.  In most cases, the students were more critical of character and story development in the games we played in class than they were of the literature we read in the class. 
• Flipped Classrooms Work! - Meeting with my students face-to-face only twice a week, with all other work being done online in forums, I felt that the discussions and analysis we had in class was much richer.  Students came to class to apply what they had learned from the previous day's online assignments. 
• Video Games are a Part of the Culture of this Generation! - Whether we like it or not, this generation reaches out to video games more than any generation before them.  With social gaming, online gaming, and console gaming all competing for the attention of kids, it's no wonder that they would rather talk about games than literature.  And I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing! 

In the end, this was an amazing course and I'm glad that I had the opportunity to teach it.  My students this summer were wonderful and the overall objectives of the class were met beyond my expectations. 

Stay tuned for more about teaching with games.