Expected, Inspected, & Respected.
"We do not learn from experience … we learn from reflecting on experience."
-John Dewey |
"We do not learn from experience … we learn from reflecting on experience."
-John Dewey |
Today's fur trade lesson was a bit of a flop. I was so excited about its potential but it never really got off the ground. I used a game developed by the McCord Museum in Montreal that simulates a fur trade rendezvous. There was nothing wrong with the game, I just didn't do a great job of being the game master. My fatal flaw was overconfidence. I love games and have often been the person who has to explain rules to new players or young kids, so I thought this would be a fairly straightforward lesson. My materials were all ready to go and I had read the rules multiple times until I felt comfortable with them. I think I had the opposite problem Andre the Giant had when fighting Westley in The Princess Bride. Fezzik: Well, I haven't fought one person for so long. I've been specialised in groups, battling gangs for local charities, that kind of thing. I'm used to leading games for groups of 4 to 6 players, not 16-18 and you definitely use "different moves" when you're teaching a game to a large group of people than when you only have to be worried about a few. In a game with only a handful of players, you don't have to explain all the rules at the beginning, you can often explain as you play the first few rounds. When there is a question about rules in a small scale game, it's easy to get everyone's attention and clarify any misunderstandings. It's much more difficult to gather the attention of a room full of riled up 11 year olds on the afternoon before a long weekend.
If I were to play this game again, I would write some simplified rules on the SMART board so that there would be visual reminders of how to play, along with my verbal explanations. I would also spend more time reflecting with the class at the end of the game to discuss what the students learned in the process of playing.
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David Wiebe
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