Principle 6 and 24, psychosocial moratorium and incremental learning, and chapter 4

by Dennis Decker

Principle 6 is the psychosocial moratorium principle. This means good learning takes place in an environment where the consequences of mistakes are lowered, so that learners are not afraid to try different things.

In video games this comes through having multiple lives or from being able to save and load a game as often as needed. A non-game example is a brainstorming session, where participants are told there are no wrong ideas so that they feel comfortable contributing to the group.

Principle 24: Incremental learning principle. Challenges or learning tasks are presented so that the learner can draw conclusions that will be helpful in later situations. For example, if I learn that blue doors have to be opened with blue keys, and yellow doors with yellow keys, then when I see a red door I will start looking for a red key.

A non-game example could be in a science classroom, where students learn that ice and water are the same substance arranged differently. Later, when they see salt crystals dissolve into water, they would assume that the salt hasn't disappeared, instead it has changed state.

Chapter 4 is about situated learning. Gee makes the point that all information is only useful if it has meaning in a certain context. For example, in one game he came across a set of numbers that little meaning for him. Later he found an object that required a numerical code to open. Suddenly the numbers had meaning and became useful to him.

He argues that learning in educational situations needs to be situated in the student's experiences. He says it is foolish to expect students to learn abstractions that they cannot relate to their experience--and it makes the students feel foolish as well.

Situational learning also suggests that people start with specific examples and move to generalizations, instead of the other way around.