Spilldidaktikk - betingelser for spill og læring i videregående skole

Digital games have been used as tools for learning and teaching for many years. Researchers, teachers, and educators have long been fascinated by computer games' ability to capture and immerse children and teenagers, while teaching skills and knowledge that apparently are at least as advanced as what students learn in school. Although some research on games and learning indicates positive effects on students' learning and engagement, there is also research that problematizes these assumptions. There is also little research that examines how teachers can best use games as pedagogical tools. To help meet the need for research on how games can be useful tools for teachers, this project examines a teaching unit at Nordahl Grieg upper secondary school. In this unit, teachers use the game "The Walking Dead" to teach students about moral philosophy and how to use ethical theories in their own reasoning. The game, and the story it tells, form the context for ethical discussion and reflection in the classroom, and the class uses only one copy of the game, displayed on a classroom projector. The project's main goal is to investigate what purpose the game serves in planning and implementation of teachers' pedagogical design. The project has followed a group of teachers over two school years. Through audio and video recordings and field notes of teachers' teaching, as well as retrospective interviews, the project seeks to gain more knowledge about how teachers use the game as a teaching tool, as well as identify important conditions and institutional and contextual factors for such teaching. The preliminary findings of the project indicate that the game is not a source of knowledge in itself, but serves as an important tool when the teacher plans and implements their pedagogical designs. Its main function is to help the teacher didacticize the subject matter: to make it accessible, understandable, and meaningful to the student through the narrative, visual representations and ethical dilemmas that the game offers. Regarding important factors in planning teaching with The Walking Dead, the preliminary analyzes of the project's data material have yielded the following findings: First, there seems to be a match between game design and curricular goals. The game's design makes it well suited to be used in pursuit of the learning goals from the national curriculum, which states that students should learn about ethical theories and argumentation models, and to engage in dialogue with others about ethical issues. This match also made it easier for teachers to design necessary connections between the game and the subject matter. Furthermore, the community of practice among the teachers has been central both to ensure that maintenance and development of the unit is not dependent on "enthusiasts" or other key persons, and to give new teachers comprehensive guidance on how to use the game in their classes. Finally, the game?s accessibility is another important factor. Most teachers say that the game is relatively easy to play, as it has a strong focus on storytelling and dialogue, and little on action sequences and other design elements normally associated with digital games. Regarding the implementation of teaching, the following factors emerge: Dialogic whole-class teaching is by far the most common form of teaching in the observed lessons, where teachers use game?s dilemmas for asking students authentic questions. This seems to be an essential teaching strategy for the game to constructively serve as a pedagogical tool, as the students seem to get little out of the cases where the game just plays itself out without the teacher's intervention. Furthermore, the game's narrative provides an opportunity for narrative empathy and fictional distancing: Both teachers and students mostly refer to the characters and events in the game as if they were real. They formulate hypothetical events based on possible solutions to the dilemmas, are mindful of the feelings of the different fictional people, and express concern about the fate of the various main characters. Furthermore, some teachers say that the fictional and interactive nature of the game makes them more comfortable with dealing with solutions and arguments that they would not be comfortable with if discussing a contemporary real-world dilemma. Finally, the relationship between educational design and game design is an important factor. The game's design is largely in harmony with the teacher's pedagogical design. In some cases, however, the teacher's pedagogical design is overridden by the game's ludic design. The students become too preoccupied with solving in-game challenges that are not of an ethical nature, their reasoning might be governed too much by a "player logic" where playing the game as expertly as possible becomes their main concern, or the teacher interferes too little in the students' dialogue, so that the academic focus is lost.

Målet med Ph.D-prosjektet er å beskrive og analysere forutsetninger for at lærere skal kunne ta i bruk kommersielle dataspill i undervisningen på en måte som gir faglig engasjement og læring for elevene. Empirien i prosjektet skal bestå av intervju av lærere før, under og etter at de har tatt i bruk spill i undervisningen. Lærerne vil ha ulik erfaring med spill utenfor arbeidslivet, så vel som ulik erfaring med bruk av spill i undervisningen. Det er et delmål i prosjektet å finne ut om lærernes ulike erfaringer med spill utenfor skolen, har påvirkning på hvordan de lykkes med å ta det i bruk i skolen. I tillegg til intervju, skal det gjennomføres observasjoner av undervisning, med bruk av video-opptak. Lærerne skal følges over flere semestre for å observere utviklingen i deres pedagogiske og didaktiske arbeid med spill. Ph.D-studiet skal gjennomføres i samarbeid med Universitetet i Bergen, samfunnsvitenskaplig fakultet, med førsteamanuensis Rune Klevjer som hovedveileder. Datainnsamlingen skjer ved Nordahl Grieg videregående skole, der kandidaten er tilsatt som lektor. Avdelingsleder Inger Lise Sleire skal fungere som mentor. NGV er en innovativ og utforskende skole, som er ledende på bruk av teknologi. Dataspill er en av de læringsarenaene vi har tatt i bruk. Skolen har opprettet funksjon som spillpedagog, og kandidaten er en av disse. Med spillpedagogenes hjelp har det vokst frem et fagmiljø for bruk av spill på skolen, og det rekrutteres stadig nye lærere som tar i bruk spill. Et langsiktig mål for skolen er å utvikle et kompetansesenter på nasjonalt nivå som tilbyr kurs og veiledning for lærere som vil ta i bruk spill i undervisningen. Vi har mye praktisk kompetanse, men mangler forskning som kan støtte og gi retning til et slikt senter. Ph.D-prosjektet vil kunne gi oss det vitenskaplige grunnlaget vi trenger i planlegging og oppstart av kompetansesenteret.