Effectiveness in Creating Progressions as an Educator
Led by Iggy Perillo
How do we define ourselves in our industry? Educator? Facilitator? Guide? All of the above?
Goal: Work on that facet of our world where we are an educator.
We are ALWAYS an educator...
Traditionally the role of an educator/education has been two things:
Teaching social norms + repetition (Alfred North Whitehead)
Cramming knowledge as much knowledge as possible into someone’s head
Not what us as educators and facilitators strive for or believe how education should be
Educators/facilitators/guides in our industry are the game players!
Teaching cooperation, management, connection, and fairness through play
The lesson/knowledge comes from the underlying values within the game
Are we teaching community building? Fun?
No... teaching communication and appropriate interaction, respect, trust, etc…
What are the actual values you’re teaching as an educator while you’re playing games?
Understanding values
Blooms Taxonomy: Levels of Learning
Knowledge/Facts
Understand
Apply
Analyze
Evaluate
Create
Progressions
The second part of being an educator is setting up your sequence/progression
The beauty of a progression is participants know where they are going next and gives them tools for what to expect
Types of Progressions:
Big... Small: What are we doing as a group... what am I doing as an individual
Small... Big: What am I doing as an individual that affects what we are doing as a group?
Passive aggressive attitudes... Trust
Competitive... cooperative
Apathetic... supportive
Closed off... vulnerable/authenticity
Comfortable... brave
Chaos... structure/efficiency
Progression is the MAP that connects things along the way...
From where you are to the outcome
The map gives students a sense of timing and helps give you flow and stay on track
Engaging at a human level
Do... Reflect... Repeat
Experiential cycling and teaching students to take that over in their own lives
Building progression is about being very intentional with those questions we ask. Understanding what they did and what skills they used and learned.
Sequence vs. Progression
Sequence: what is each activity/challenge/initiative that I’m going to do?
Progression: What are reflective questions to get to each goal/skill
- Breakout and plan progressions -
What am I teaching?
Whose goals? Whose mission? Whose values?
What is the progression/map to get there?
How do I connect steps to get there? How do I share that map with the group?
How do I share/empower students to get themselves there?