EDIT: as suggested I have turned most of this comment, somewhat expanded, into a post.
The entire point of experiential learning, which is what you set up to happen when you have students play a game—as opposed to telling them about a game—is that there is no “right” or “wrong” lesson to be taken from it.
...see linked post for fuller argument...
If Hamermesh is to be faulted for something, it is for (apparently) imposing on the students his own conclusions from a given outcome, as opposed to letting the students figure out for themselves what the outcome means.
If Hamermesh is to be faulted for something, it is for (apparently) imposing on the students his own conclusions from a given outcome, as opposed to letting the students figure out for themselves what the outcome means.
Agree completely. I wonder why your comment isn’t upvoted to +10. Applauding the defector in PD is a weird thing to do for a professor anyway.
Possibly related is Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s concept of the ludic fallacy: “the person who is assuming a tightly-constrained game will emerge as the loser”.
I’m considering a top-level post (my first) on experiential games and a little background on how they might be worthwhile for LWers—there have been a few reports of experiences, such as the estimation/calibration game at one meetup, but I’m feeling that a little detail on the constructivist approach and practical advice on how to set up such games might be useful.
I use experiential games quite a bit; one that I remember fondly from a few years ago was adapted from Dietrich Doerner’s /The Logic of Failure/ - the one where you are to control a thermostat. Doerner’s account of people actually playing the game is enlightening, with many irrational reactions on display. But reading about it is one thing, and actually playing the game quite another, so I got a group of colleagues together and we gave it a try. By the reports of all involved it was one of the most effective learning experiences they’d had.
An experiential learning game focusing on the basics of Bayesian reasoning might be a valuable design goal for this community—one I’d definitely have an interest in playing.
By all means write it, this stuff sounds very interesting.
Possibly related are the PCT demo games mentioned on LW before. I imagine a Bayesian learning game to be similar in spirit (better implement it in Flash rather than Java, though). Also tangentially related are the cognitive testing games.
EDIT: as suggested I have turned most of this comment, somewhat expanded, into a post.
The entire point of experiential learning, which is what you set up to happen when you have students play a game—as opposed to telling them about a game—is that there is no “right” or “wrong” lesson to be taken from it.
...see linked post for fuller argument...
If Hamermesh is to be faulted for something, it is for (apparently) imposing on the students his own conclusions from a given outcome, as opposed to letting the students figure out for themselves what the outcome means.
Agree completely. I wonder why your comment isn’t upvoted to +10. Applauding the defector in PD is a weird thing to do for a professor anyway.
Possibly related is Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s concept of the ludic fallacy: “the person who is assuming a tightly-constrained game will emerge as the loser”.
I’m considering a top-level post (my first) on experiential games and a little background on how they might be worthwhile for LWers—there have been a few reports of experiences, such as the estimation/calibration game at one meetup, but I’m feeling that a little detail on the constructivist approach and practical advice on how to set up such games might be useful.
I use experiential games quite a bit; one that I remember fondly from a few years ago was adapted from Dietrich Doerner’s /The Logic of Failure/ - the one where you are to control a thermostat. Doerner’s account of people actually playing the game is enlightening, with many irrational reactions on display. But reading about it is one thing, and actually playing the game quite another, so I got a group of colleagues together and we gave it a try. By the reports of all involved it was one of the most effective learning experiences they’d had.
An experiential learning game focusing on the basics of Bayesian reasoning might be a valuable design goal for this community—one I’d definitely have an interest in playing.
By all means write it, this stuff sounds very interesting.
Possibly related are the PCT demo games mentioned on LW before. I imagine a Bayesian learning game to be similar in spirit (better implement it in Flash rather than Java, though). Also tangentially related are the cognitive testing games.