International Teachers

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Comment by Ryan Goble on September 3, 2009 at 3:09pm

Hey folks,

If you haven't joined the fledgling "Gaming Group" you might want to check it out. Today there was an, I think, "essential," article about Quest To Learn - a new video game based school in NYC. Frank Baker hipped me to the article.

Note: It is from the British version of The Economist so you'll read about "maths" and other such linguistic curiosities :)

An excerpt...

Periods of maths, science, history and so on are no more. Quest to Learn’s school day will, rather, be divided into four 90-minute blocks devoted to the study of “domains”. Such domains include Codeworlds (a combination of mathematics and English), Being, Space and Place (English and social studies), The Way Things Work (maths and science) and Sports for the Mind (game design and digital literacy). Each domain concludes with a two-week examination called a “Boss Level”—a common phrase in video-game parlance.

In one of the units of Being, Space and Place, for example, pupils take on the role of an ancient Spartan who has to assess Athenian strengths and recommend a course of action. In doing so, they learn bits of history, geography and public policy. In a unit of The Way Things Work, they try to inhabit the minds of scientists devising a pathway for a beam of light to reach a target. This lesson touches on maths, optics—and, the organisers hope, creative thinking and teamwork. Another Way-Things-Work unit asks pupils to imagine they are pyramid-builders in ancient Egypt. This means learning about maths and engineering, and something about the country’s religion and geography.

Full post here - I would love to hear what folks think about this school concept.

BTW - For the record - I'm awful at video games - even Pac-Man.