Games Design Workshop

I've been thinking again about my Games Design Workshop that I ran last year. It raises its head every time I have a break. I recently bought a book called (funnily enough) Games Design Workshop by Tracey Fullerton and am looking at ways to supplement my existing course. It's a great book with heaps of comments from experienced games developers about their favourite games and draws direct links from brainstorming to prototyping to end product.

I think using the workshop as a linking concept would be an excellent way to create a horizontal cross curricula course for the middle school. The maths part is easy with examinations of coordinate geometry and algebra with analysis of games like Pac man, Pong and Tetris, English using storyboarding, physics with acceleration and speed calculations, Sose by incorporating historical elements (Civ or AOE) or urban planning using SimCity. Art, media, music have obvious connections as does potential electronics and robotics courses. It could be a fabulous piece of work.

It could also be adapted to vertical use as an option class focusing on T&E and mathematics for advanced students over a number of years.

This would be something that I would love to create and have at least a one year lead time to work with teachers on creating the work samples and creating meaningful assessment.

Management of teachers

Inspiration is a key element of teaching. Inspiration is contagious and desirable in schools. Maintaining high levels of inspiration is a task that requires knowledge of the teacher, their current capability and their motivation. If the balance is not present the inspiring character burns out, leaves and/or the light goes out.

There are always external factors that contribute to performance requiring emotional support. Ill grandparents, pregnant wives, family members need time and rightly come higher up the priority chain than school needs. As teachers, we must give these things in our spare time, there are no weeks of holidays available to call on in times of need - things just pile up to the next school holidays. I feel for those without partners as they are the primary source of emotional support in most cases.

The ups and downs of professional and academic careers correlate directly to the amount of support available at any point. In teaching, the majority of academic support comes from fellow teachers. If you look carefully at any team you can see those being supported and those supporting. This is a fragile structure, as each teacher needs to be a beacon of light and there is a dwindling supply of these stalwart teachers selflessly providing experience when needed.

We need to understand and monitor the 'expected vs actual' career progression of staff to assist in the creation of a supporting cast of experienced teachers and make the bright lights of our profession brighter and glow for longer. We so often focus on student outcomes but forget to examine why something works and the minor elements that have contributed to their success or failure. When we clearly identify a positive outcome, identify issues and reward contribution, you have an example of leadership at its foremost.

What I find interesting is the poor use of performance management tools in teaching. If I asked senior management of five different schools, 'What inspires (insert name here) on their staff?' I would be surprised to hear answers that related directly to the staff member. I would be even more surprised if they knew that staff member's technical background or desired career path. On the other hand, the top 3 students in year twelve and the professions of last years top five may be more readily recitable. This outlines a key problem in schools today created through central staffing. The lack of coal face staff management and limited experience 'out of school' in true management positions is a key element in the morale issue within our schools. If management does not feel the requirement to understand the needs and wants of staff, providing optimum educational opportunities through inspired leaders for our students will always be a haphazard affair.

Establishing a connection with kids

Being a little fond of gimmicks, I've tried a few measures to connect with the kids. My guitar is a frequent addition during revision periods, I know a bunch of games on Playstation (and have an addiction to Guitar Hero, Singstar and Oblivion) and the Wii (and have another addiction to Mario Kart and the Wii Fit). I play any PC games that aren't FPS (am quite looking forward to Spore). I play a bit of soccer, follow the trials of the local footy teams, play cricket, have been a part of cross country teams, read fantasy fiction, like board games, watch Idol, Scrubs, have watched the first 7 seasons of Buffy, had a V8 commodore, grew up in the area, like modern dance music, remember the 'old school' rap scene first hand, have a history before teaching, can still do a laughable running man in time to music and can mispronouce emo as emu (as sticking your head in the sand is not a subculture). I know what Facebook, mySpace and proxies are.

And talking about all of these works with some kids but the upkeep is a fulltime occupation. The best gimmick I have found is an oldy but a goody.. the 'I'm a big maths dork and I don't have to be cool' line. It's 'like umm, the best thing, EVER!' - I can do whatever I like - dance strange, sing, wear a stupid tie, have green hair, long socks and sandals, anything.. Don't worry - he's just the maths dork.

The best fun of all is during duty sitting with a bunch of popular students. You sit down, they start to freak out and you have a laugh threatening to do this everyday until they improve. It's great and I heartily recommend doing it if you wish to instill a little fear of social decline! If that's not working you can always start talking about who likes who in class.

Entertaining students is not the only path to a great rapport. Another great way is to start a before school maths group for each year group that you teach. This has given us a lot of insight into which students are in the zone and for others given an avenue to ask for more assistance. It also gives whiners no excuse if they fall behind - the morning class is available if they need help!

For those recalcitrants who get sent to my room for faculty isolation, I make sure that the rest of the class has a good time and I refuse to allow the isolated student to engage. When they ask why isn't our class like this - I show them the work that these students get through in a lesson and show how it could be. Many of the younger students assume that more 'familiar' student/teacher rapport that year 11/12 students typically attain is a right, rather than an earned privilege and don't realise that 'respect' is a two way street (although they must be a little slower than normal if it has taken until year 10 to figure it out!).

Peer pressure also works well. If we are doing an activity that the majority enjoys and one student refuses to engage, I'll pack up the whole activity and do board work (copy the following into your book in silence and then complete questions 1-4350). The next time that student is not as quick to use "refusing to participate" as an attention seeking/power play strategy.

Lastly, in upper years I am interested in what their plans are past school. By knowing where students are going can help a lot in establishing relevancy of content. Also knowing their graduation point total (they need to earn 24pts, 'a C average' to graduate) can be a great focal point in the final two terms. The rule is - no work in class, no assistance out of class; no excuses, no extentuating circumstances or whining will change my mind. It's one of the few things I am fixed on as groups of students believing that their issues out of school and their social life ranks the needs of the rest of the class is plainly wrong. Setting work ethic before leaving school is the best lesson we can provide and an equity issue for those that work hard, week in, week out.

Students badmouthing teachers

When you have a great rapport with students they reach a stage where they wish to talk about other teachers. Your response can do a lot to enhance or damage the atmosphere in the school.

Whatever you do, whatever you think, support your fellow teachers. Resist reasoning or justifying your/their position as the student has probably thought about it more than you and could leave believing that they were right and now you agree with them too.

Stopping this sort of conversation dead is usually quite easy. Take the moral high ground. One way is to say, if they didn't care they wouldn't be doing (insert supposed misdemeanor here) they would just let you fail. I usually have a talk about diversity and how students react differently to some teachers than others. Another good strategy is to talk about how in the workforce you rarely get to work with people that you like and have to develop coping strategies. Another is to stick your hands over your ears and say loudly "La La La" until they stop.

A celebration of diversity in teaching staff is important. Having the happy go luck teachers - with a laissez faire mentality, the disciplinarians, the collaborators, the facilitators, the technically focussed, the passionate, the administrator are all important to maintaining a rich and diverse culture within a school. There is always a teacher that students don't like, protecting that staff member can also be a self preservation measure, it just might be you the students target next!

The worst scenario possible usually happens when popular students are underperforming and are being encouraged by caring teachers to raise their standards. The mob that can occur needs to be diffused, detected in early stages and squashed by team leaders. Teachers and more often parents indirectly cause and encourage these issues as typically we judge and discuss actions based on reports by students and when we have only a limited view of the whole picture.

Raising resilience of students such that they can work with a range of people, especially ones they don't like or relate to, is an important skill developed in school. Only by supporting all of our teachers 'publically' and working on issues with team-leaders, peers and managers 'privately', can we adequately support teachers with perceived image issues.

So get to it!