The Jekyll and Hyde Effect
Play, Games, and Learning in the classroom
Professional identities torn asunder?
Brock Dubbels
Brock@vgAlt.com

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Outline
• This presentation explores the Jekyll and Hyde Effect and themes
elicited from themes coded through discourse analysis on artifacts
and outcomes from a graduate course in literacy.
• The Jekyll and Hyde Effect calls into question approaches to
accountability and implementation of research and assessment in
classroom instruction.
• This is then connected to reviews on intelligence and recent
research on comprehension and new views that connect
embodiment and motor resonance as important parts of recall and
mental simulation (some times called imagination) validating active
learning as a necessary part of building subject area
comprehension.
• This is then connected to current thinking on play and
implementation with games and play in the classroom.

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The Jekyll and Hyde effect
• New models of comprehension and
memory validate the value of active
and playful learning for cognitive
enhancement and generative transfer.
Data on academic performance and
engagement measures from five years of
games, play, and virtual space learning in
k-20 classrooms will be presented in the
context of assessment measures using a
model for assessing cognitive growth. This
is contrasted with educator beliefs the
efficacy of play and the limitations of
models of teacher professionalism
creating a Jekyll and Hyde Effect.
• Through interviews, artifacts, and surveys,
k-20 educators have expressed a
willingness to embrace games, but have
been reluctant to do so publicly for fear of
professional reputation, as well as the
ability to implement such pedagogical
change.

Introduction
• Professional identity in a school can have a profound effect on
engagement and performance by teachers—especially in a
time of reform. Of significance is the role of trust and the way
this single factor in a school community can shape teacher
interactions with other staff, students, administrators, and
community.
• What happens when a teacher’s core beliefs about learning
and student instruction are contrary to mandates and policy?
• What if there is research to support that active learning
involving movement, emotion , and play may be the basis for
building reading comprehension?

• Teachers have expressed that they feel tension as
professional educators in that their beliefs about
student learning contrast with the current beliefs
related to the culture of accountability;
• That what may look good on a spreadsheet, may
not be helping kids in the bigger picture.
• Many teachers have unknowingly found
themselves in a situation where they have begun
creating two different classrooms,
• and two different sets of grade books . . . and
two different teaching identities – culminating in

the Jekyll and Hyde Effect.

Jekyll --
• standards, benchmarks,
traditional curriculum to not
be singled out: by the book,
proper, professional,
dignified, and ready to do
whatever they are told.
Hyde --
• I know what works for my
kids, modification of
mandates to fit students
engaging; developmentally
appropriate, and fits the
teachers MOJO.
The classroom
we show
The classroom
we grow

Methods
• Over the course of five years documents and teacher artifacts were
collected with permission through courses, surveys, and policy documents
for teaching standards and quality instruction. Teacher responses to
questions related to standardized assessment and curriculum were
elicited through survey, interview, and course assignments in a graduate
course for teachers at the University of Minnesota. These artifacts and
responses to research literature on play and standardized curriculum were
analyzed from the perspectives of work and play, reform, and professional
teaching identities. Where work was often associated with rigor, teaching
to the standards and tests, and scripted curriculum; play was often seen as
differentiated, student-centered instruction with teacher influenced
discovery activities, open-ended criteria driven projects, and inquiry.
These two categories were coded analyzed for influence or reaction to
education policy mandates, standards, and quality indicators from TAP,
INTASC, and the Minneapolis Public Schools Standards for Effective
Instruction in the form of genre chains (Fairclough, 2007).

Genre chain of quality & mandate
What I began to see was more that researched methods, mandates, policy, and assessments
were lost in translation – in that they were seen as replacing traditional curriculum rather than
to enhance and extend instruction and curriculum that teachers felt passion for and have
developed over time. This was probably due to a lack of imagination, lack of experience, and the
purpose and outcomes, lost in translation, and teachers feeling disconnected and disrespected.

When What skills are being assessed How are these skills assessed-Sample Assessments Why and Who
F, W, S Screening – Identify student skills, needs
and levels of performance
phonemic awareness and phonics
fluency (WPM)
comprehension
reading levels
oral language
spelling, phonics & vocabulary
Assessment Tools
 Kdg. and 1st Grade District Assessments/Star Early
Literacy/HM Emergent Literacy Survey
 CBM/DIBELS/AIMSWEB
 Running Record -Retell and Comprehension
Questions
 Fountas&Pinnell/HM/Rigby/DRA
 Mondo Oral Language Assessment
 Words Their Way
Why
 To identify students who need additional
assessments and supplemental/intervention
instruction
 To form differentiated instructional groups
Who
 All Students
F, W, S Diagnostic – Analyze student strengths and
weaknesses to identify specific instructional
needs
 oral language
 miscue analysis
 expression
 comprehension
 advanced literacy abilities (G/T)
 spelling, phonics & vocabulary
Assessment Tools
Mondo Oral Language Assessment
Running Record – Error Analysis
Running Record – Expression/CBM – Expression
Oral and written responses to reading
Raven’s Test and Circle Test (gr.2)(G/T)
Words Their Way
Why
 To provide teacher with more precise and in-depth
information of a student’s knowledge and skills to
guide instruction
Who
 Students identified for additional support based on
screening assessments
On-
going
Progress Monitoring –Monitor student
response to targeted instruction
phonemic awareness & phonics
Fluency
Comprehension
Oral Language
Spelling, phonics and vocabulary
Assessment Tools
Star Early Literacy/HMEmergent Literacy Survey
CBM/DIBELS
Running Record – Retell and Comprehension Questions
Mondo Oral Language Assessment
Words Their Way
Why
To inform teacher of the effectiveness of instruction for
individual students
To identify students who require further assessment and
intervention
Who
 Initially, all students and then to monitor students
who have not met grade level benchmarks and are
receiving interventions in specific areas
F, S Benchmarks-Measure student performance
relative to state or national grade-level
achievement expectations
 phonemic awareness & phonics
 fluency
comprehension/vocabulary
vocabulary
Assessment Tools
DIBELS-Segmentation,Nonsense Word Fluency (gd.1- 2)
DIBELS –Oral Reading Fluency (gr.1-5)
CALT (gr. 2-5)/ MCA (gr. 3-5)
Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) (Kdg.)
Why
To inform the teacher of student baseline scores based on
national or state norms
To make decisions at the school, classroom and individual
student levels
Who
 All Students
On-
going
Performance Assessments – Evaluate
student abilities, including content
knowledge and habits of thinking, that
conventional standardized tests are less able
to capture
Assessment Tools
Teacher Observations/Anecdotal Records
Student Work
Check Lists/Rating Scales/Rubrics
Teacher Created Assessments
Why
 To inform teacher of student progress based on
application of knowledge, skills and habits of
thinking
 To inform ongoing instructional practices
Who All Students

Meet you to death?
What else can we do?
It can be overwhelming.

Three Main Purposes of Assessment
1. Informing instruction to improve
learning
2. Supporting standards focused
instruction
3. Facilitating communication and
collaboration
Types of Assessments
 Screening assessments
 Diagnostic assessments
 Progress monitoring assessments
 Benchmark assessments
 Performance assessments
Classroom Focused Assessment Reported Assessments
Examples:
 classroom work;
 student developed rubrics;
 student self assessments; and
 informal teacher observations.
Uses:
 looking at student progress;
 conferencing and goal setting;
 student response groups;
 peer and self assessment; and
 mini-lessons, breaking down
instruction of reading and writing
components and standards.
Examples:
 screening assessments;
 benchmark assessments;
 required work samples graded on
district rubrics; and
 teacher observations of specific
behaviors indicated for reporting.
Uses:
 making instructional decisions;
 documenting interventions and
student progress;
 supporting teacher collaboration; and
 checking student progress against
standards and benchmarks.
•support administration of assessments;
•be familiar with assessment tools and their purposes;
•allocate and prioritize time for data based teacher
collaboration;
•build school schedules that enable teachers to respond to
assessment information; and
•create school cultures focused on the use of assessment
information and teachers as learners.
Leader Roles:

On being told about
changes that needed to be
made for data collection.
Teacher Roles:
•administer assessments where
appropriate;
•collect and organize assessment
information;
•engage in collaborative data
analysis, review and sharing;
•collaborate with colleagues in
response to assessment
information;
•implement instruction responsive
to assessment identified student
needs;
•track student progress over time;
•provide feedback to students on
their work and progress;
•engage in reflective practice;
•engage students in identifying
criteria for quality work; and
•align assessments to standards
and instruction
"doing my job is getting in the way of doing my job“

Why have Learning Walks?
• Reinforces attention to an instructional focus on teaching and learning.
• Gather data about instructional practice and students’ learning to
supplement other data about school and student performance.
• Stimulate collegial conversation about teaching and learning through asking
questions about what evidence is and isn’t observed.
• Learn from other participants through their observations, questions,
experiences, and perspectives.
• Deepen understanding and practices by continuous feedback and monitoring
of school growth.
• Deepen understandings and practices related to continuous improvement.
• Focuses the school’s work on school learning goals, instructional practices,
and students’ learning.
• Provides feedback to the school’s stakeholders and helps maintain
momentum and focus on teaching and learning.

On Learning Walks and
Observation
I had all the things on the overhead
that an observer would want to see—
not that I don’t use the projector for
kids--but I usually do not include
teacher stuff like benchmarks and
standards; that just turns them off (the
kids). . . And when we are working in
class, we have projects and structured
group work that does not look like
what they (observers) are coming to
see.
So I told my kids that we were going
to have a visitor tomorrow who
wneeded to be a better teacher, and
that is why they did not have a
classroom of their own. So the kids sat
patiently and let me explain
everything on the overhead and did
the worksheet. The kids were all very
worried about her and really wanted
to help!

Two sets of books

On the use of reading
software for data
collection
from using reading software, where I
shared that this software had no real
research behind the outcomes. She
said:
“it doesn’t matter if it works, as long
as I have these scores to give to
parents and administrators I can do
what I know works. The district and
parents like to have numbers that level
the kids scores. I just don’t want to be
the nail sticking up.”

Special Ed

Regarding Special Ed
Schools fudge, parents fudge, teachers
fudge and the federal paperwork almost
encourages this to happen as there are
loopholes in place to make sure the
system keeps taking its chunk regardless
of testing. There are thousands of stories
of this online and there is enough
paperwork and documentation to show
what happens to intent when good policy
is unfunded and often unfounded.
Every new little change that comes and
the implementation of it is colored by the
precedent of how one is permitted to
implement policy.
The premier example of how that is done
is with special education. I am no sp.ed.
basher, don't get me wrong, it's just very
easy to see where policy and intent do
not come close to matching what actually
happens. Sp.Ed. teachers often have to
fight to get things like good inclusion in
schools where the school actually touts it.

Read what we tell you

About limitations in books
I believe that the literacy gap can be
closed, children just have to be
enthusiastic about reading and be able
to explore the genres they enjoy so
that reading is fun. My mother is a
writer and we've always had books in
the house but I am the only one (out
of 7) who likes to read and actually has
bookcases with books. I think it is
about access to books and children
being allowed to read what they want,
not the books the teacher has chosen
for them or the ones that the
curriculum says is mandatory.

Rejected
Inappropriate Too hard

Play is suspect
Maybe everyone is?

On the role of play
As a teacher I like to have everything
under control. I want to have things
planned out and orderly. Play is a very
difficult thing to have control of. So
when it comes to the classroom, is
play the right thing to do? I think it is
important to let kids play. . . play is
very important for kids in the learning
process. I feel play is essential for
learning, but educators need to be
cautious of how they use it in the
classroom.

When translation is
included
I was struck with several examples of things my
school IS doing right (according to the checklist
on pages 30-44). (I will put Gee’s terms in
parenthesis or otherwise note them). For
example, my principal encourages me to
incorporate choice (#1 Co-design) into my
teaching because she recognizes and reminds
me, as Gee states, that this encourages
“ownership, buy in, engaged participation”
(p.31).
I believe the math curriculum our district uses is
in alignment with Gee’s cycles of Expertise (#7)
because skills and concepts are taught cyclically,
allowing students multiple exposures and
practices times to develop, deepen and master
the given academic content over the 5+ years of
the program. In science we use the FOSS kits,
which allow learners to “play around” (#10
Sandbox) before they dive in and learn and are
assessed on the content.
When I was a young student my father used to do
science experiments with me, and I remember
learning all about the Praying Mantis in a hands-
on experience with a live praying mantis. This is
deep learning. It was a meaningful experience
where I was able to internalize the information I
was taught and now can pass on to other
students.

Creating a second
classroom
Professor Dubbels could have written
this exercise down and asked us what
problems we thought would
arise. Certainly we would have come
up with a list and could have discussed
it. However, having us actively
participate in the simulation, “playing
the game”, created a longer lasting and
more meaningful experience. Notice I
used the term “game”. I believe that
as teachers we sometimes shy away
from that term due to fear of what
other teachers, administrators, or
parents will say.

Mandates and translation
From my experience of teaching,
teaching reading is one of the hardest
things for me to do. I have a wide
range of learners and readers, from
newcomers with no concept of
phonics and letters to struggling
readers who benefit most from small
group work to high readers who need
to be challenged. I struggle with my
own focus on what I need to be
teaching. What skills will all students
benefit from? What skills need to be
reintroduced? I have gone through
the week long trainings where we are
told what we can do but I want to
know how we can do it.

Rigor and early grades
• We have talked about rigor so much and how it looks different to different
people depending on where they are in the learning continuum, their
position in the school (teacher/ principal, assistant principal, EA, or even
parents), teaching experience, and also their educational philosophy on
how to teach/how students learn.
• In primary grades the play is part of the students work and
learning. When someone walks into the classroom and doesn't
understand it, they may preserve that the students are not working on
the state/district standards. Kindergarten (I taught Kindergarten for about
20 years and for summer school) now has 3 tests given by the
district. The district sends a tester out to each site to administer the tests
in Sept, Jan., and April. They test different items on the tests and it's hard
to do an
accurate correlation. In April they do a CBM/curriculum based
measurement which is how many words that they can read in one minute
accurately...(You know that part). If you know that your students are
going to be tested and compared with other teachers at your site and
other schools; teachers do feel a need to teach what will be on the
test. This is also something that the administrators would want teachers
to do so that it reflects good on the school. Allowing the play/exploration
time can take away from some of the test preparation time and conflict
with what we know is better for early childhood learning
(play/exploration) .
• This can be a dilemma for teachers. The first grade has a district tester
come out fall and spring to individually administer an
oral reading test. Second grade has had the CALT computer test in the
spring (our schedule for next year list the MAT test for second grade 3X in
the year.
• There are school walk through observations by district staff and other
teachers. They are looking to see rigor and differentiated
instruction. Their idea can be different from the teacher that they are
observing.

So what does all this mean?
Are teachers creating two different identities to get by?
Isn’t this institutionally reinforced falsehood?
What if the teacher must modify the curriculum to
make it work –
are we still measuring the same mandates then?
What if the measures are wrong?

There is a battle of perception
Child convenience design
Adult convenience design

Perceived Importance of Play
Play is for young kids Middle school means work
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
PIP
So as we grow older, we are
expected to be ready to work.
This may be how words like “rigor”
and statements like
"it's your job” , and
“you don’t have to like it”
come in to play.

Our emphasis for students is different
Teachers may need support to implement authentic ways to integrate this new emphasis on
assessment , and perhaps we are not connecting with the difficulty of this task.

Discipline
• Do we have this all wrong?
• Consider the word: Discipline
• What is it to be someone’s disciple?
• Is that out of love and respect, or fear?
• Are we losing good quality instruction through
poor translation of research for
implementation?
• Is there a reason there are not more disciples?

Will standardizing teaching lead to standardized minds?
Is there a right way?
A wrong way?
What is good teaching?

We understand the importance of tests, but . . .
What will tests offer to students’ education? Really?
Should what we do in the classroom, provide the basis for success on tests?
Or is testing a new genre that needs to be accounted for across content areas?
Is there a general intelligence that can be nurtured for testing?
Is there more than one intelligence?

Measuring Intelligence, a Brief History
• Francis Galton, a cousin of Darwin, was into measuring
humans in every way possible … including measuring
their ability to make sensory discriminations which he
assumed was linked to intellectual prowess.
• However, the measure of intelligence really took off
with the work of Binet who thought that intelligence
was not reflected in abilities to make sensory
discriminations but, instead, was reflected by
performance on a variety of paper-and-pencil tests
targeting such things as imagery, attention,
comprehension, imagination, judgments of visual
space, memory, etc…).
– The Binet-Simon test (1905) was the first such test.

So, is there one intelligence, or
several?
• Spearman (1927) was one of the first
Psychologists to theorize about human
intelligence.
• He thought that there was one basic factor,
termed the g factor (g for general) that he
thought was underlying all cognitive
behavior.
• In addition to this g factor, he also thought
that there were a variety of s factors (s for
specific) that also contributed to a subject’s
performance on some specific task.
• Thus, performance on any given task we
assumed to reflect the subject’s general
intelligence, plus specific intelligence
relevant to the task.

Factor Analytic Approaches
• Some studies using the factor analytic approach ended up finding
many different factors related to intelligence.
• Thurstone (1938) found 7 factors:
1. verbal comprehension,
2. verbal fluency,
3. number,
4. spatial visualization,
5. memory,
6. reasoning,
7. and perceptual speed.
• However, when a factor analysis was performed on Thurstone’s
factors, Cattell found that two factors underlie the 7 factors. He
labeled these two factors fluid intelligence (Gf) and crystal
intelligence (Gc), concepts which are still discussed quite frequently
in current intelligence research.

General Intelligence
• Cattell thought fluid intelligence (Gf) was a non-learned
characteristic that was revealed through performance on culture-
free tasks tapping such things as the ability to see relations in
patterns.
• Conversely, crystal intelligence (Gc) is learned knowledge such as
that revealed by vocabulary or mathematics tasks … anything that
taps the kinds of things you might learn in school.
• Cattell also thought that fluid intelligence was necessary for good
crystal intelligence … basically, if one had a high fluid intelligence
then, given the opportunity, they could achieve a high crystal
intelligence … however, if the fluid intelligence is low, then the
person will not benefit much from the learning opportunity.

An Information Processing Theory of
Intelligence
• Sternberg (1985) has come up with a different
theoretical viewpoint concerning intelligence that is
based on the information processing framework used
by most cognitive psychologists.
• His view assumes three factors:
1. Componential Intelligence consists of the mental
mechanisms that people use to plan and carry out tasks.
2. Experiential Intelligence refers to our ability to apply past
learning in novel situations to solve problems more
easily.
3. Contextual Intelligence refers to an ability to perform
behaviours that are adaptive in an evolutionary sense.

A Neuropsychological Theory of
Intelligence
• Gardiner’s (1983)
neuropsychological
approach posits that if
certain abilities are
located in separate parts
of the brain such that one
ability can be damaged
while the others are
retained, these abilities
must be the basic building
blocks of intelligent
behavior.
• Gardiner claims there are
seven such categories of
intelligence:
1. linguistic,
2. musical,
3. spatial,
4. logical-mathematical,
5. bodily-kinesthetic,
6. intrapersonal awareness,
7. and interpersonal
awareness.

Plasticity, and Metamodality
• Research in cognitive
neuroscience has made a case
for meaning making as a
distributed network of diverse
cognitive connections with
redundant functions that can
respond to trauma with
plasticity—allowing one area
to compensate for loss or
mishap in another. Research
on plasticity shows that “the
experience in one sensory
modality influences the
experience of another.”
(Pascual-Leone & Hamilton,
2001, pg. 1).

Embodiment and Motor Resonance
The brain is for action
• the brain is for creating action with the body and
responding to activity in the environment – that the
majority of the brains function and work consists of
controlling the body, and that there is an intimate
connection between action and language
comprehension . . . the meaning of a situation to an
individual (human or nonhuman animal) consists of
the set of actions the individual can undertake in
that situation. That when we read, we are imagining
the actions described through the symbolic
representations from the medium. In effect, a
mimetic or representational mental simulation is
created based upon description from the text. The
text then queues memory from world experience
and connects the multimodal memory that
supports the referents and descriptors through
predicate and nominal input and the qualities that
contextualize them as well as provide the ability to
project patterns of experience from gained prior
experience. We see a mental image of what is
described by words.
Sensory Organs

Indexical Hypothesis
Schema of an egg Mapping Perception to schema
• The Indexical Hypothesis
suggests young readers may
not consistently “index,” or
map, words to the objects
the words represent
because of a lack of
experience with physical
objects and action.
Consequently, these readers
fail to derive much meaning
from the text.

According to Glenberg,
Jaworski, Rischal, and Levin
(2007, p. 231)
the point of reading is to convey
meaning. But what is meaning?
According to the IH, meaning arises
from creating or simulating
the perceptual/action situation
described by sentences. These
simulations are determined by the
properties of the objects referred
to, that is, the affordances of the
objects, not the properties of the
words. Physical and imagined
manipulations help children to index
words to objects so that affordances
can be derived and meaning achieved.
Manipulation recalled more, and more successfully answered the
inference questions, than children who read and reread the
critical sentences. The effect size (Cohen’s d) for recall was 1.39,
and for answering the inference question it was 0.81.
In other words, the effects were substantial.
After applying physical manipulation, the children were taught to
imagine manipulating the objects; that is, they were told to figure
out how they would move the objects, but instead of actually
moving them, they were to imagine moving them. In the reread
condition, the children were taught to read the text once out loud
and once silently. Columns 2 and 3 in Table 9.1 show that the
benefits of manipulation extend to imagined manipulation.
That is, children do not have to always physically manipulate;
once they learn how to index, the indexing can be done in
imagination, much the way we suppose that competent adults
read. The effect sizes for imagined manipulation compared to
reread were 1.87 and 1.50 for the recall and question answering,
respectively.

Glenberg, Gutierrez, Levin,
Japuntich, and Kaschak
(2004)
brains evolved to control action, and,
as suggested by M. Montessori (1967),
a successful theory of cognition and its
application will require recognition of
that fact. The indexical hypothesis, an
embodied account of language
comprehension, posits that language
is
understood by simulating the actions
that underlie sentence meaning and
that reading comprehension can be
improved by ensuring that this
simulation
occurs.

•Are we going to lose play-like learning based upon a lack of imagination in
understanding implementation of research-based instruction and assessment
for data-based decision-making?
•Perhaps embedding and synthesizing these measures in purposeful learning
aligned with student interest and choice is important for engagement.
•Maybe play is the engine for deeper learning and comprehension?
•So why are we so caught up on worlds like work, rigor, effort, and discipline?
What can we do?

Where are we now?
We have taken away play in school?
Play, what about rigor and standards!
These kids have tests to take!
I don’t want to be the teacher no
one respects. I am a professional
and know my content area.
It’s okay for little kids and
Montessori, but this is a
public school.

When is an activity not
play?
Play is an activity where there are NO
significant consequences.
No is significant here.
When you here the words
Don’t play with that . . . No
honey, no. ..
My coffee .. …
Computer . . . .
No!
Ohhhh noooo!
Mostly, it is not play when an activity has consequences – but
that is relative to who is cleaning it up!
Then you know it is not play

So many demands, directions, and different students
Which way do go?
What road do we follow?
Should we wait until they go away?
Which way?
The Right Way to Teach

Building comprehension process
Basic reading skills
Decoding
Reading Comprehension
Comprehension Skills
Age/ time
Figure 1. Kintsch & Kintsch in Paris
& Stahl (2006)
Grade 4
Reading to Learn
Learning
to Read

It takes a week to make a jelly bean.

Interaction seems essential in learning, the more feedback the learner
receives on a behavior, attitude, or performance, the more likely they are to
become aware of it and either refine or change the behavior with the information
provided in the feedback (Ferster & Skinner, 1957; Baer & Wolf, 1970; Vygotsky,
1976).
Taken side by side, games are designed in much the same way we
conceptualize learning through as we view Vygostky’s zone of proximal
development (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988, p. 35) next to game designer Daniel
Cook ( last visited 6/10/09, http://is.gd/1kQ0r).
Learning and schema building
are iterative

Learning Acceleration
• Stanovich (2000) called
this compensation, where
the comprehender may
try to utilize more highly
developed skills and
knowledge in order to
make sense of what may
be new or unfamiliar by
utilizing knowledge and
experience from other
content areas.
Once upon a time . . . Happily ever after

Enter the labyrinth – a new experience, perhaps a story.

It is when we gain top-sight, a systemic awareness of the landscape, that we
can become strategic and move on from trial and error, and simple tactics for
exercising agency. In a galaxy far, far away . . .

Towards top sight

Stories and media have become much more complex, but also more
interactive and helpful by adapting to the needs of the learner. Games
are structured forms of play that create interaction and thus, learning.
Learning is about feedback and the next act to modify the last behavior.
That is no
moon, that
is a space
station!

Just think about reading
• Pattern recognition
• Expression
• Decoding
• Mental representation
• Mental Simulation
• Motor resonance
• Affective catalyst
• Embodied

Elements of comprehension
• Attention
• Prior Knowledge
• Content, Structure, Genre, Categories, Concepts
• Situation Model
– spatial locations, time frames, people, objects, ideas, color,
emotions, goals, shape, spatial, temporal, causal,
ownership, kinship, social, etc.
• Composition of Comprehension
• Perceptual, action, and affective areas contribute
Glenberg, Gutierrez, Levin,
Japunitch, Kaschak (2004)

Recall and fluency

How do we build a comprehension model?
Comprehension Model
• A spatial-temporal framework
– spatial locations, time frames
• Entities
– people, objects, ideas,
• Properties of entities
– color, emotions, goals, shape,
etc.
• Relational information
– spatial, temporal, causal,
ownership, kinship, social, etc.
Literary Elements
• Character/ Characterization
• diction
• Plot
• Setting
• Point of View
• Theme
• Tone
• Voice
• Word choice

Play is the factory of learning and Comprehension
The Event Indexing Model
Zwann, Langston, & Graesser, 1995; Zwann & Radavansky, 1998

Situation model
• When a reader has well-
developed comprehension
skills, they can recruit prior
knowledge to bootstrap
lower level processes
(Stanovich, 2000) and this is
an important idea for
making a case for using
more accessible texts that
are relevant and interesting
to the learner. Once again,
the reader can use higher-
level process in order to
support lower level process
(Stanovich, 2000).

Characteristics of readers
High comp
High fluency
Low Comp
High Fluency
Low comp
Low fluency
High Comp
Low Fluency
L
E
V
E
L
of
F
L
U
E
N
C
Y
ability to comprehend in dialogic method /create a model
In separating readers into two of these categories, which will remediate faster?
These categories were derived from texts experienced
through different sensory modalities read aloud, visual and
listening comprehension

So what’s the problem
• You guessed it, the low fluency high comprehension
group.
• Comprehension comes from experience and high order
cognition and problem solving.
• Games and play can provide this.
• Yes, games can deliver content just like a lecture.
• This new schema and learning diversity can be
leveraged from a well developed competency and to
warm up a cognitive cold spot.
• If there is a strength of experience, build from it.
• No, problem!

Well, maybe . . .
• Except for the issue of that lack of imagination in
implementation of standards, benchmarks, and
assessments in the classroom.
• Turning our teachers into outlaws, brigands,
renegades, and iconoclasts – one school at a
time!
• Or worse, positioning them as resistant and
incompetent.
• Helping kids tell the difference between learning
and an education—then blaming them for poor
effort.

Lost in translation
• Nobody came here with anything but good
intentions.
• You can teach probability by selling penny
candy, ask the folks who studied Brazilian
orphans!
• How about descriptive stats and averages with
basketball? Baseball? Dungeons and Dragons?
• Video games?
• Play!

1. Single text use predominates
2. Learning facts is a dominant goal
3. Little preteaching of concepts and vocabulary
4. Teacher control and order is of paramount interest
5. Accountability, testing, and time constraints limits
teacher efforts to implement content reading strategies
– Alvermann & Moore (1991)
Current dominant classroom practice

There is no consensus on which practices are most
likely to produce understanding of content area
materials
– We have only a partial knowledge base substantiating what is
effective comprehension instruction and which classroom
factors best promote comprehension.
– We have not adequately synthesized research in a coherent
national research agenda with comprehensive enough
theoretical frameworks.
» (RAND Study Group, 2002; Sweet & Snow, 2003)

 Such instruction is seldom embedded in the regular
curriculum.
 Instruction is seldom tailored to their range of abilities with
a range of texts and tasks.
• (Moore & Hinchman, 2003; Moje & O’Brien, 2001)
Adolescents who struggle to read in subject area
classrooms are positioned as unmotivated, and lacking
in requisite skills and strategies needed to succeed in
their content classrooms. They could benefit from
instruction that is developmentally, culturally, and
linguistically responsive to their needs. Yet. . .

• Adolescents respond best to complex demands of reading across
the disciplines when they are interested, have appropriate
strategies, and can use multiple forms of print text and media to
engage with content—i.e., they are engaged-- yet. . .
– Most instruction in school is still traditionally organized
around single print texts, such as textbooks, with little student
choice
• (e.g. RAND Reading Study Group, 2002)
– Most students don’t expect to learn important concepts from
reading, and teachers, who also don’t expect students to
engage with texts, talk around the texts (20 years of research,
using a range of research methods: e.g.,
• Alvermann & Moore, 1991; Wade & Moje, 2000; O’Brien, Moje, &
Stewart, 2001)
– The era of cognitive strategies instruction which has
dominated secondary level classrooms has yielded to social
constructivist approaches, yet classroom instruction is
remarkably similar to the climate described in five themes
discussed by Alvermann and Moore in 1991
• (discussed in Bean, 2000)

Current State of Adolescent Literacy:
Focus on Reading
• We have focused almost exclusively on skills and strategies instruction,
yet . . .
– Adolescents’ perceptions of their competence may be a more
important predictor of whether they will engage with difficult texts
across the disciplines than their past reading performance
– (Alvermann, 2001; Anderman et al., 2001; Bean, 2000; Guthrie & Wigfield,
2000)
– Struggling adolescent readers have disengaged from reading and
choosing to read early in their academic careers and are unlikely to re-
engage with strategies instruction alone
– (Guthrie & Wigfield, 2000; Alvermann, 2001)
– Strategies instruction has rarely provided enough intensive instruction
with guided practice, and independent practice with monitoring, to
ensure that students can read strategically
– (Dole, 2003; Duffy, 2003, Palincsar, 2003)

Tools given to educators
Blooms Taxonomy Readability
Well intentioned, but not reliable—and not meant for instructional use and leveling
Readability is usually sentence length and word frequency.
Blooms T was not meant to be a mandate, but a framework for teacher consideration.

The trouble with bloom
context
Synthesize yellow and blue
Recall the process of
photosynthesis

Readability
1. Mark Twain piloted a riverboat and later wrote several novels.
2. Vince offered to help cook dinner, so Janet asked him to make the salad.
3. After we reached our motel that night, we called our children.
4. Quiet and peaceful, the library is open until 9:00 pm on Fridays, but closes at noon
on Thursdays.
5. The air, our faces, all cool, moist, and dark, and the ghostly sky.
6. The writer attacked the king and admitted the mistake at the meeting.
7. The writer that the king attacked admitted the mistake at the meeting.
8. The pundit that the regent attacked admitted the gaffe at the conclave.
9. To be, or not to be.
• Lets not forget shifts in time, format, character, voice, and all
of the variables that create narrative like cohesion.
• Simple, complex, and compound sentence variations

So much more to a text
• For hundreds of years, writers and teachers have used and taught the cognitive and structural factors in text such as organization and
coherence. Researchers in readability also addressed the effects of these factors on comprehension:
– • Image words, abstraction, predication, direct and indirect discourse, types of narration, and types of sentences, phrases, and
clauses (Gray and Leary 1935).
– • Difficult concepts (Morriss and Holverson 1938, Chall 1958).
– • Idea density (Dolch 1939).
– • Human interest (Flesch 1949, Gunning 1952)
– • Organization (Gunning 1952, Klare and Buck 1954, Chall 1958).
– • Nominalization (Coleman and Blumenfeld 1963; Coleman, 1964)
– • Active and passive voice (Gough 1965, Coleman 1966, Clark and Haviland 1977, Hornby 1974).
– • Embeddedness (Coleman 1966).
• The cognitive theorists and linguists, beginning in the 1970s, promoted the idea that reading was largely an act of thinking. Among the
ideas they promoted were:
– 1. Meaning is not in the words on the page. The reader constructs meaning by making inferences and interpretations.
– 2. Information is stored in long-term memory in organized "knowledge structures." The essence of learning is linking new
information to prior knowledge about the topic, the text structure or genre, and strategies for learning.
• 3. A reader constructs meaning using metacognition, the ability to think about and control the learning process (i.e., to plan, monitor
comprehension, and revise the use of strategies and comprehension); and attribution, beliefs about the relationship among
performance

Cohesion – lost in translationin
another way!

Remember “rejected”
• Well, when kids are given little choice in what
they read, and the choice happens to be a
book lacking cohesion because it is leveled
and sterilized, it tends to represent reading for
readings sake.
• It also tends to infantilize older students who
are developing as readers.

Cause you could just be reading stuff
and you don’t necessarily learn
nothing from it. Like the books we
read in class…

The books we read in class, we just be
reading them. We don’t really learn nothing
about um. Half of the time people don’t even
read them because she be like read chapters
one through ten, all in a day and people don’t
even be reading them. We have to tell the
questions, girl what happened in chapter
fourteen, what. Half the time we don’t even
read them before we do quizzes, we guess.

a book isn’t interesting then you
don’t remember what it says and
you just don’t care

They will read
• Funny though, kids will develop complex subject
registers of schema and vocabulary on topics they
know and are interested in – like pop culture,
video games, and life-like struggles that excite
and relate.
• Look at kids who read game guides and fan
fiction.
• We need to open our perceptions regarding
choice , games, and play.
• This will free our students to learn, and our
teachers to teach – with passion.

But maybe not what we expect!
The unexpected can be a blessing if we are open to it

Teachers have professional lives as well as personal lives
It may be important to an educator to allow themselves to be authentic in the
classroom, and share parts of their personal lives to make connections to kids
and show they care and may have had similar experiences and explain how
they handled the situation. Or should the professional remain detached?
Is it important to bring one’s passions to
teaching and content?

Ethos of Activity
Play Work

We seem to have
forgotten that children
have voices
The Nature of childhood and
development is different for each
child—And then there is nurture.
Teachers cannot forget this, because
they see these children every day and
have relationships with them.
Often teachers are put into situations
where children are behind, and many
children are at different levels of
development, and have different
endurance for focused work and
attention.
Sometimes a teacher is the one
positive role model in a child’s life, and
school is where the child is fed
regularly, feels safe from aggression,
and can let down their guard from
uncertainty.

A Life Without Play
Whitman had been raised in a tyrannical,
abusive household. From birth through age 18,
Whitman’s natural playfulness had been
systematically and dramatically suppressed by an
overbearing father.
A lifelong lack of play deprived him of
opportunities to view life with optimism, test
alternatives, or learn the social skills that, as part
of spontaneous play, prepare individuals to cope
with life stress. The committee concluded that
lack of play was a key factor in Whitman's
homicidal actions – if he had experienced regular
moments of spontaneous play during his life,
they believed he would have developed the skill,
flexibility, and strength to cope with the stressful
situations without violence.
Dr. Brown’s subsequent research of other violent
individuals concludes that play can act as a
powerful deterrent, even an antidote to prevent
violence. Play is a powerful catalyst for positive
socialization.

What is the opposite of play?
Depression

What can we do?
• Implement play and game like assessments
– Games assess, measure, and evaluate by their very
nature!
• Alignment of the assignment
• Interaction
• Grouping
• Autonomy supporting spaces
• Thresholds /liminality
• Play as the subjunctive mood

Hybridity
So what do you call the answer to our curricular conundrum?

Play is a portal to Self-Determination and Work
Working hard at play?

What this means for schools
Maybe we need to motivate and engage through recruiting play for developing work-like competencies. You can go to:
http//:5th-teacher.blogspot.com
www.vgalt.com/blog
www.vgalt.com/moodle
www.videogamesaslearningtools.com

Invoking play
Imagery &
visualization
Roles &
Identity
Rules
Branching
Probability
By design
Dubbels (2008) Reading, games, and transmedial comprehension. Handbook of Games in Education.

Thresholds
Formerly, communities created rites of passage – where community
status and identity were earned and bestowed.

Sustained Engagement
• When looking to measure growth or change, or even to understand
whether a learner has truly engaged, an educator should also look for
evidence of commitment and positive attitudes related to the activity and
subject matter.
• Engagement is not just doing the work, it is a connection and an affinity to
an activity supported from the affective domains (Chapman, 2003).
• Skinner & Belmont (1993, p.572) report that engaged learners show
sustained behavioral involvement in learning activities accompanied by a
positive emotional tone and select tasks at the border of their
competencies, initiate action when given the opportunity, and exert
intense effort and concentration.
• Pintrich and & De Groot (1990, in Chapman) see engagement as having
observable cognitive components that can be seen or elicited through
exploring the learner’s use of strategy, metacognition, and self-regulatory
behavior to monitor and guide the learning processes.

Work Play
SYM/
ASSYM
ANIM /
NONANIM
POSTURE
RELAXED
/ STIFF
TONE
VARIED/MONO
VOLUME
VARIED /
CONSISTENT
EMPHASIS
LESS /
MORE
COMPLEX
VERBOSE /
TERSE
SYM/
ASSYM
ANIM /
NONANIM
POSTURE
RELAXED /
STIFF
TONE
VARIED/MONO
VOLUME
VARIED /
CONSISTENT
EMPHASIS
LESS /
MORE
COMPLEX
VERBOSE /
TERSE
1 1
2 2
3 3
4 4
5 5
6 6
7 7
8 8
9 9
10 10
11 11
12 12
Dubbels (Accepted) Learning engagement, student 2.0, and the role of play in convergence culture in the digital age. JISE

Extrinsic Motivation
Continuum
External regulation Introjected regulation Identified regulation
Identity informs
motivation and
engagement
•External regulation: doing something
for the sake of achieving a reward or
avoiding a punishment.
•Introjected regulation: partial
internalization of extrinsic motives.
•Identified regulation: doing an activity
because the individual identifies with
the values and accepts it as his own.
Dubbels (2009) Dance Dance Education and Rites of Passage ---Lessons learned about the importance of play in sustaining
engagement from a high school “girl gamer” based upon socio- and cultural-cognitive analysis for designing instructional
environments to elicit and sustain engagement through identity construction. IJGCMS.

Four Principles for
Engagement by Design
Play as a Subjunctive Mood Desirable Activities
Spaces
Desirable Groups
Dubbels (2009) Dance Dance Education and Rites of Passage. IJGCMS.

“More than eight in ten (83%) young people have a
video game console at home, and 56% have two or
more."
--Gen M: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year-olds (Executive Summary, p. 36)

9 ways that games and play can be used in an
instructional context:
• As cultural artifacts for study and evaluation
• Games as new fiction and non-fiction narratives
• As models and simulations for developing scientific habits of mind
• As tools for multimedia production such as Machinima
• The role and construction of virtual worlds for student learning and the
modern diorama
• Video games as tools for delivering content -- serious games
• Video games as a model for structuring classroom learning
• Games and play as research methodology for portals to gaining insight and
understanding for organizational change
• Connecting to secondary competency development and supporting
mediums and technologies for learning acceleration

Better Living Production

Gigaheart
• Problem:
– Many doctors are not
effective in detecting
heart sounds
• Built to deliver and quiz
• Heart sounds play
• Learner is guided to
identify heart sounds
and what they might
indicate
Artifacts

How about Math and
Science?
Scientific Habits of mind
Applied curriculum
Modeling
Simulation
STEM
Modeling
3rSTEM

Clapping
Academy
Design

Games Unit
Inquiry
Reading comprehension
Composition
Sustained engagement
Behavioral management
Planning
Cooperative learning
Classroom as game
Outcomes
Dubbels, B.R. (in press) Video games, reading, and
transmedial comprehension. In R. E. Ferdig (Ed.), Handbook
of research on effective electronic gaming in
education. Information Science Reference.
Artifacts

Rhythm & Flow
• High interest
• Role Playing
• Performance
• Technology
• RFOL
• Writing
• Video
• Music
Design

Educate me
• Participants design
a board game to
identify outcomes
and the context,
route, and
obstacles to getting
there.
Artifacts
Data
collection

Dance Dance Education
Because kids won’t let an education get in the way of their learning
Design
Data
collection
Dubbels (2009) Dance Dance Education and Rites of Passage ---Lessons learned about the importance of play in sustaining
engagement from a high school “girl gamer” based upon socio- and cultural-cognitive analysis for designing instructional
environments to elicit and sustain engagement through identity construction. IJGCMS.

What it looked like and what we did

Gains in standardized tests

Discussion
• Based upon these concepts in game design
and the literacies and habits of mind
supported by them, how can we use these
design elements to construct curriculum for
our classroom?
• Do we need computers to do this?

Literacy 2.0 Fallout?

Natal

The Jekyll and Hyde Effect
Play, Games, and Learning in the classroom
Professional identities torn asunder?
Brock Dubbels
Brock@vgAlt.com