How To Write A Critical Analysis Of Gee's Gee: Summary

In Gee – “Learning and Games” the author starts with an argument that people learn from experiences stored in long-term memory. He then states that the conditions experiences need to meet in order to enhance deep learning. Since video games are virtual experiences focused on problem solving, they recruit learning and mastery as a form of pleasure. The conditions experiences need to meet to enhance deep learning, therefore, translate into design principles for good games. He then explains how these conditions go beyond the individual to include the individual’s participation in social groups that supply meaning and purpose to goals, interpretations, practice, explanations, debriefing, and feedback, conditions necessary for deep learning from

In the Situated Learning Matrix, learning moves from identity to goals and norms, to tools and technologies, and only then to content. Beyond learning from problem-based, goal-driven experiences, He argues that some games stress models and modeling, not just as part of the gameplay as lots of games do but as the very nature of their gameplay as a whole. Such games often dispense with avatars, allowing the micro control of many units. Models and modeling are inherently tied to learning and exploration since they simplify complex phenomena in order to make those phenomena easier to deal with for the accomplishment of goals, problem-solving, and action. They also allow for learning from experience which is in danger sometimes of being too concrete to be rendered more abstract and generalized. He also discussed several things games do well that enhance learning like recruiting distributed intelligence, collaboration, and cross-functional teams for problem-solving; offering players “empathy for a system”; marrying emotion to cognition; being challenging while still keeping frustration below the level of the affective filter; giving players a sense of production and ownership; and situating the meanings of words and symbols in terms of actions, images, experiences, and dialogue, not just “definitions” and texts read outside of contexts of use. In the end, his “take home” message is, the language of learning is one important way in