Although still somewhat controversial, gaming involves the use of interactive feedback generating computerized gaming programs in order to educate. Interactive and immersive virtual worlds are a key.
Usually used in elementary education, but can be adapted to higher levels. Useful in management, business, military, and social science education as examples.
The core components of educational gaming reflect the following objectives.
Fishbowl activities allow a student to practice a skill under peer review and audience. In the fishbowl activity, a group of students are chosen to discuss a given topic. The rest of the class watches, listens, or reads the transcript of the discussion. A secondary discussion occurs concerning the outcomes and process of the first. Another technique is to remove one student from a discussion who is then responsible for providing a summary.
Just because a course is online, does not mean that the work has to be. Just as in traditional education, fieldwork is the placement of students in real-world situations in which to learn about specified content. Examples can include botanical data gathering in a field, library research, student teaching, etc. Apprenticeships can also be considered a form of fieldwork. This category is very broad.
This category of assignments does not refer to the essay question on an exam. Rather, it is referring to well developed essays that the students construct over a period of time with the occasional guidance and feedback of an instructor. Students are given a topic on which to write the essay. The topic may be self-selected, instructor-selected, or from a list of acceptable topics. The length of the essay can vary greatly as can the type of essay. Essays can be fictitious as well.
Drill and practice is a behaviorist aligned technique in which students are given the same materials repeatedly until mastery is achieved. In each iteration, students are given similar questions to answer or activities to perform, with a certain percentage of correct responses or actions moving the student to the next level of difficulty.
Most common in Kinesthetics, Coaching, Music, Mathematics, Language, Typing, and Biological Sciences. Not as common in adult education.
In a document analysis activity, students are given a single document or group of documents with the same category/author/design to thoroughly analyze. The activity can take several forms. The document analyzed can be text-based or a photo. In forensics, the item might be analyzed for handwriting or linguistic style (note that fingerprint analysis would be considered a laboratory exercise in the OTAI). In linguistics, the document could be studied for style. In poetry, it could be an explication of a single work.
Students are posed questions to discuss with the class. The questions serve as advanced organizers or scaffolds upon which the students construct new knowledge and tie in what they already know to emerging concepts. An asynchronous nature provides students the opportunity to consider questions more in depth.
Students are provided a controversial topic. Following research, they are assigned a position to debate with other students. Follow up discussion of the debate can critically analyze the performance as well.
Although generally used in speech, social sciences, and political science, the debate is appropriate for any topic. It is less often used in fields such as mathematics.
The concept mapping technique was developed by Dr. Joseph D. Novak at Cornell University in the 1960s. It is based on the theories of Dr. David Ausubel, who stressed the importance of prior knowledge and a proper learning set in being able to learn about new concepts through meaningful receptive learning. The basic idea is that students are given a central concept. To that concept other related concepts that the students already know are graphically mapped. It can be done individually or in a group. It can also be done in an instructor-led setting.
A case is presented to students or selected by the students, leading them to a correct response or solution given the situation or an experiential knowing of the given case. The activity can also lead to an understanding of the ramifications of their decisions. The case itself can be structured or unstructured. In case-based instruction, the learning can involve recording and synthesizing information on a case, indexing it to other cases, and/or adapting a solution to the given case.