Three Concepts to Reflect
With as many real world and crazy situations in every day life, Chapter 7 titled "Exploring Problem Solving with Software, Apps, and Games" targets how learning games and software can beneficially promote problem solving skills for students. The first term that caught my eye in the chapter was called an ill-structure problem. "Problems in the real world are complicated, messy, and often require trade-offs and compromises to resolve. Such real-world issues have been called ill-structured problems because there is no simple formula to follow to get things done" (Maloy, Verock-O'Laoghlin, Edwards, & Woolf, 2014). I favored this term because it explains that instead of ignoring the problem, it encourages students to define and face such problems with educational actions. Teachers can give students complex or simple online problem-solving activities. And with increased development in technology, I feel like simulation games and apps can improve more and more for students to use problem-solving skills.
Along with ill-structure problems, comes the higher and lower order thinking of it all called Bloom's Taxonomy. I targeted this term next because I had honestly always heard of this but never knew what it meant. Bloom Taxonomy is a "seminal educational classification tool" that was developed by Bloom and his collaborators to distinguish between the "different forms of thinking, from basic recall and interpretation of information (lower-order thinking) to comparison and evaluation of theories and perspectives (higher-order thinking) (Maloy, Verock-O'Laoghlin, Edwards, & Woolf, 2014). I think this term allows for more structure, for when it comes to problem-solving, in a non-structured based every day life. An example would be for lower-order is memorizing spelling words. Higher-order would be putting together a poem or story using those words. Both types are designed to help students succeed in higher order thinking.
The third term I am mentioning is computer games. I think we all know what it means but I found it interesting how the book mentions it. As a child, computer games was something growing and becoming popular. I would play Sesame Street learning games on my parents' computer. Computer games "are computer, video, and web-based game software applications that are immensely popular among children and adolescents today" (Maloy, Verock-O'Laoghlin, Edwards, & Woolf, 2014). These games provide an electronic playing environment along with visual feedback once a milestone has been completed on the game. Some computer games can add story-lines and plots to embellish the game, or movies and commercial television are included to promote certain interests. I hope to see computer games continue in the right direction when it comes to educationally shaping the students' higher order of thinking.
After reading this chapter, I found it to be one of my favorites. Now working as a full time VPK teacher, I thought it was interesting to see how helpful computer games can be in the classroom. My class uses an iPad for individual small group time in which students can play educational shape sort and mathematics/science games. Blooms Taxonomy taught me the difference between lower and higher order of thinking so I can challenge my students more. I think the terms provided in this chapter allow for a little more structure in this ill-structure problem solving world.
As sort of a review of this post, here is a short fun quiz based on the three terms above.
https://play.kahoot.it/#/?quizId=1a02e018-40e8-4882-98d9-6381315e2ed8
References
Hunt, Alaina. (2015, October 6). "Chapter 7 Blog Post #E" Kahoot!. Retrieved October, 6, 2015, from
https://play.kahoot.it/#/?quizId=1a02e018-40e8-4882-98d9-6381315e2ed8.
Great reflections - glad you found many concepts to relate to and you learned a bit more about Bloom's taxonomy. No doubt you will be exposed to much more Bloom in future classes. Good job on your Kahoot, too!
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