TED Community » Ali Carr-Chellman

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• A reply on Talk: Ali Carr-Chellman: Gaming to re-engage boys in learning

  Feb 23 2013: Don't be too certain: http://news.psu.edu/story/143584/2012/12/20/not-all-gamers-are-low-scorers-friendships-relationships?utm_source=Penn+State+Research+%26+Discovery&utm_campaign=1b861fc8de-Research_and_Discovery_February_21_2013&utm_medium=email

• A reply on Talk: Ali Carr-Chellman: Gaming to re-engage boys in learning

  Feb 23 2013: Which research are you most curious about? If you look at the boys project you'll find the stats which have now been updated.

• A reply on Talk: Ali Carr-Chellman: Gaming to re-engage boys in learning

  Feb 23 2013: Right you are....I think educational games per se are not our solution. There's a good quick article in Gamer this month pointing to several games for things like English (Scribblenauts) and Science (Portal2) I'm most interested currently in how we can use off the shelf gaming to re-engage boys in schools by communicating that the school culture is shifting by allowing gaming.

• A reply on Talk: Ali Carr-Chellman: Gaming to re-engage boys in learning

  Feb 23 2013: Truly my pleasure, I haven't been on this forum for a while, so glad to get on here and find out all the wonderful support you're offering one another. Great to see these wonderful ideas.

• A reply on Talk: Ali Carr-Chellman: Gaming to re-engage boys in learning

  Nov 23 2012: Single sex schools are really interesting. Research is muddy because so many of these schools are upper crust high income families--not all but more than the average public school, so conclusions drawn can be incorrectly positive as income correlates more highly with test scores than almost any known social science correlation. There are some really innovative and interesting public school options in single sex education, though they are looked at questionably by ACLU and several other groups concerned with equity.

• A reply on Talk: Ali Carr-Chellman: Gaming to re-engage boys in learning

  Nov 23 2012: Yes, I think both math and reading have suffered from a bit of a tilt that may not be friendly to many boys' ways of learning. Math that is all discovery and multiple ways of doing it and puzzles, reading that focused on whole language rather than decoding. I think that boys' minds work differently for the most part (not universally of course) and that the decoding is like something that they love to learn to do, once they figure out that this is how reading works, they get into it, and then if we can find and select books of relevance for boys, that helps a great deal. Math similarly, we have taken out algorithms and competition which seemed to serve them better in the past, and focused on collaboration and multiple ways of knowing which seem on the face of it a good thing, but when you put a boy in that culture, it doesn't always work.

• A reply on Talk: Ali Carr-Chellman: Gaming to re-engage boys in learning

  Nov 23 2012: Yes, Jonathan, it's VERY difficult to talk to people, let alone teachers or school administrators, about this problem. I've had many such conversations, and it's immediately a position of defending the school against any sense of sexism. I'm not accusing anyone of intentional sexism, but rather I'm suggesting that it's inherent in the culture of the school, the way it operates and the structures that exist around it. Candid talk is indeed what we need!
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  A reply on Talk: Ali Carr-Chellman: Gaming to re-engage boys in learning

  Nov 23 2012: Actually that game screen is likely to teach them precisely what you're asking for, creativity, problem solving, endurance, perseverance, that's one of the reasons why women's groups are concerned about the lack of girl gaming today. In a short talk, there's no doubt that I've only hit on one of many issues in the education problem...related to boys' education. Reform and restructuring, actually new designs for education has been my passion for more than two decades, and indeed, I have only scratched the surface, this talk was a focused one on just one area, drawing some broader implications for school cultures that need to change, but it is a beginning.

• A reply on Talk: Ali Carr-Chellman: Gaming to re-engage boys in learning

  Nov 23 2012: I don't necessarily disagree with most of what you've written here, although as a feminist myself, I recognize that the gifts of feminism are not really about excluding boys, but about including girls. Yes, there are some who take it to the extreme and do exclude boys, and have a political agenda. But my work is not about that political agenda from either side, and there are definite ideological sides here on this issue, but rather trying to figure out how we can overcome the rhetoric and really help boys out here. Getting rid of all the women in classrooms and leadership positions is definitely not the answer, getting more men in the elementary school would be very helpful, and a good step, but not at the loss of good women teachers. It's a tough nut, but we hope to crack it. I have a dissertator just now working on why men leave the profession of elementary level teaching. Should be enlightening as he's an excellent student.
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  A reply on Talk: Ali Carr-Chellman: Gaming to re-engage boys in learning

  Nov 23 2012: Rhonda, it's interesting, there are some women's groups that are quite concerned about girls' lack of gaming because there are vital life skills learned in traditional gaming that has been dominated by boys (not social gaming like facebook games). We shouldn't make anyone learn in a way that's not best for them, and individuallizing instruction in a scalable way has been many educators' hope and dream, but has largely remained a dream.