EdTech Adventures: Unstructured Play with Tanner Higgin
[00:00:00] Charlotte Cheng: Welcome to EdTech Adventures. Join us as we explore the role of technology, STEM, and creative play in education. With expert guests, we'll discover how learning is always an adventure. No boundaries, no rules, no expectations, just play. What if all learning experiences followed these four simple guidelines? Today, our guest, Tanner Higgin, will share how unstructured play could be integrated into EdTech and education. We'll review the key components needed to make unstructured play successful, and highlight a few pitfalls of it as well.
Tanner has nearly 20 years of experience in education, first as a teacher and researcher, and later as a learning designer and editorial director. At GameDesk, he helped to create the PlayMaker School and its curriculum. At Common Sense Media, he led the editorial team that rated and reviewed over 4,000 EdTech products. [laughs] He's now the principal consultant at Dune Shift, where he helps EdTech startups and companies make more meaningful and effective content and learning experience. Thanks so much for joining us, Tanner.
[00:01:04] Tanner Higgin: Thank you, Charlotte. I'm excited about this. This is one of my favorite topics.
[00:01:09] Charlotte Cheng: Me too. So, let's start at the beginning of your journey. Could you describe a memorable education experience that you've had as a student?
[00:01:16] Tanner Higgin: For me, the thing that pops into my head is a project I did, I think it was probably late elementary school or early junior high. I wish I could remember the teacher and grade and subject, or a- anything like that of specifics, I just remember the project, which speaks to how valuable the learning experience was, but this was, to my memory, the first, like, truly interest driven project I did. And it was focused on Atlantis. I think maybe the teacher was asking us to look up some sort of mythology, something or other, and I chose Atlantis for some reason.
And I ended up spending far, far more time on this project than I had anything else prior, because we had gotten a computer recently, and I was hooked up to Prodigy internet, and I just started going deep into an internet rabbit hole on Atlantis, and finding all these sources, and I combined it with library sources that I found at the school, and put it all together in, like, this sort of creative brief with pictures embedded in. I can't remember the computer program I was using, but it was one of those things that it was, like, totally self-driven, and I went way above and beyond because it was just, I was interested in the subject matter, and I was discovering, like, an interest in computing and technology, and sort of seeing how the Internet could be a part of that.
And to me, that's, like, become, when I reflect back on my career and where I've ended up, like, in some ways it's sort of that experience that maybe set off that spark. And whoever that teacher was, I don't remember your name [laughs] but thank you. [laughs]
[00:03:05] Charlotte Cheng: I hear you. I- I still call out to Mr. Madkins, Mrs. Bowcot, Ms. Smith. There's certain pivotal teachers-
[00:03:12] Tanner Higgin: Yeah.
[00:03:12] Charlotte Cheng: ... that have touched ... Usually when I ask this question, it's always that one teacher, or that one project that really-
[00:03:19] Tanner Higgin: Yeah.
[00:03:19] Charlotte Cheng: ... like you said, it lit the spark of interest and, "Oh, this is what learning can be." I remember exactly like you, given the freedom to just dive into a project. And weirdly, it was the film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
[00:03:32] Tanner Higgin: Mm-hmm.
[00:03:32] Charlotte Cheng: And how that reflects how our government works. And I also put together a binder. I went online.
[00:03:39] Tanner Higgin: Yeah.
[00:03:39] Charlotte Cheng: Found these diagrams, printed them out, like, explained the thing. And I- I still have that binder. Like, it's that pivotal. That's awesome to share. [laughs]
[00:03:46] Tanner Higgin: I wonder ... So, this is my theory about that. My belief is that everyone's answer starts with interest, right? And that, like, in terms of my values as an educator and learning designer, it's all about capturing student interest and then aiding their agency to go seek out and find and structure their own learning. And I found whenever I've asked that question to someone, that project or that experience often revolves around their own personal passions. And it's like, if we would all just understand that and start organizing education around that, like, maybe every day would be that exciting, right?
[00:04:26] Charlotte Cheng: Yeah, agreed. It can be scary, though. So, you- you were a teacher too.
[00:04:29] Tanner Higgin: Yeah.
[00:04:30] Charlotte Cheng: For me, I remember, like, my first year, it's sort of scary, 'cause you have classroom management issues and things like that. And so you sort of wanna be in control, which is the opposite of what you need to do to allow for that type of freedom. Like you said, that agency. Did you try and practice that when you were a teacher in the classroom?
[00:04:47] Tanner Higgin: I tried. [laughs]
[00:04:48] Charlotte Cheng: [laughs]
[00:04:48] Tanner Higgin: So, this is the classic, someone who, you know, preaches something but then, you know, in practice ... And it really does come down to, to me, curricular obligations are really, to me, even more than classroom management, the amount of content anyone has to cover in the given set, in the given amount of time, makes it so difficult to do fully interest driven work, because you just have to plow through content. And interest driven work relies on, like, going deep and sort of giving someone the space to discover and have things emerge that might be off the curricular map, right? So, in limited cases, I feel like I was very successful with it, but never quite in- in terms of a full class curriculum.
[00:05:41] Charlotte Cheng: I feel like yeah, I agree in the moments piece. You would have moments of that and then it would just go away.
[00:05:48] Tanner Higgin: Yeah.
[00:05:48] Charlotte Cheng: Because you had to deal with assessment and things like that.
[00:05:50] Tanner Higgin: Mm-hmm.
[00:05:51] Charlotte Cheng: Is that how you became interested in the world of EdTech? Like, as you were teaching, exploring and running into that kind of a- a struggle?
[00:05:58] Tanner Higgin: Yeah, in some ways I think ... So, I always had this interest in tech, and I was one of those young people who was on the early internet making websites and tinkering and getting really involved in online communities and forums on AOL and that kind of thing. So, it'd been a current throughout my life, and then I went to grad school, and was teaching and studying, and went in as, like, a British Romanticist, studying literature, and within the first year, had switched over entirely to focusing just on games. Because I had discovered in some classes, and I went to UC Riverside, with some really brilliant professors there, most certainly James Tobias, who's still there.
That, like, you could just, you could do work on games, like, they were a media form just like literature, and you can study it. So, I began studying it and really digging deep into the history of technology. What's kind of called science in technology studies in academia. And one of the key sort of obsessions of that area of academia is unpacking the tension between technology and culture. The way technology can accelerate the culture from which it emerges and can accelerate both the good and bad based on your own value system, right?
And I became fascinated in the way this applies to learning and play. Because when we use a tool in education, or design a tool in education, there's the potential of a technology to vastly expand kind of the creative capability of what students are doing, and give them all of these opportunities. But it also equally often aids surveillance and data capture, and incredible control over a student experience. And we see this in games as well. Games can be, like, joyful and open ended, or they can feel like rote and onerous, right? In World of Warcraft you can feel like you're exploring this virtual world and traveling with friends and doing all these amazing things, or when you're doing, like, high end raiding with groups of people, it feels like a job. Like- [laughs] like you're working a job, right?
[00:08:17] Charlotte Cheng: Yeah, being someone who dove heavily into WoW as a-
[00:08:22] Tanner Higgin: [laughs]
[00:08:22] Charlotte Cheng: ... Gnome Mage, who, like, I dipped into the raiding and was so, felt completely out of love with that area. But I was the one who would just run through towns having dance parties and collecting pets.
[00:08:33] Tanner Higgin: Yeah.
[00:08:33] Charlotte Cheng: And I think it's so interesting that in that game, like, it was so expansive [laughs] that it allowed for both of those experiences to exist-
[00:08:42] Tanner Higgin: Yeah.
[00:08:42] Charlotte Cheng: ... within one game. But I agree, there's like, within that one game, you could see the positives and negatives of what it could accelerate. Because, oh, man, some of those raids, people were yelling at each other, [laughs] and being very, uh, non-cooperative.
[00:08:56] Tanner Higgin: Mm-hmm.
[00:08:56] Charlotte Cheng: So, yeah, uh, there is a danger in that too. And I think this is even more relevant in the world of AI. We've been talking about how AI also accelerates along these tracks too. Both in data capture but also in freedom of expression and freedom of creation. So, this really delves into the topic that we highlighted in the beginning, unstructured play. So, in your work and what you've done, what does unstructured play mean to you? Whether it's in games or any of the other learning experiences that you've worked on?
[00:09:24] Tanner Higgin: This is a tricky question, because play and games, right, are interconnected. So, when you talk about unstructured play, but then games are highly structured, definitionally it starts to get a little cloudy. But I would say that in my view, unstructured play, the key aspect of it is freedom and choice. And a very particular kind of choice, non-trivial choice. So, in a lot of EdTech you'll see choice being marketed. But that is choice of very kind of constricted systems where there's not much you can do in a game.
It's like, "Click this button to throw a ball through a hoop and then do a math problem in between," or whatever. But for me, unstructured play is all about non-trivial choice, where the choice a student or player is given impacts the play in very significant ways, and allows them opportunities to really restructure the very play experience toward their own end. So, the World of Warcraft example, uh, you know, that is a game. It's got rules and systems and goals and outcomes, and all that stuff. But you were able to carve out within that system a way of playing that felt unique to you, that was expressing your own interest, and I think that's what we have to strive for when we're doing unstructured play in learning environments is giving students the feeling that they're making a play experience their own.
And that it can evolve democratically, right? That there is a freedom of choice that is either determined by yourself alone or with the group of people you're playing with. That to me is really the ultimate essence of it.
[00:11:16] Charlotte Cheng: Yeah, non trivial choice, I like how you're pairing those two. I keep hearing, "Voice and choice," but sometimes that choice and that voice is sort of trivial, what we offer them. And I think part of it is, we've offered choice in CodeCombat and Ozaria are our chord games. And some of them are semi trivial, where it's just cosmetics, but some are non-trivial where you're putting on gear that affects your ability to use code to complete levels. And those non-trivial choices take so much longer to develop.
[00:11:46] Tanner Higgin: Mm-hmm.
[00:11:46] Charlotte Cheng: I mean, like, you're creating multiple paths 'cause you can't anticipate what they choose. So, it's a lot of more development time. So, why should we care? Like, what kind of benefits do learners get when they experience unstructured play to- to warrant all of that extra work on the design side or on the educator side?
[00:12:03] Tanner Higgin: Well, I think from a developer's perspective, and, uh, this is equally as well teachers, I would say, but to me the big benefit is you'll learn a lot from your players if you give them that choice and you're talking with your players and observing them, you'll start to see how they're playing, and you should just follow that, right? Like, you can learn so much from a student who's sort of evolving a lesson or game that you've structured in new ways and pushing against the boundaries. And if you follow their lead, I think it's going to lead to more learning and engagement, ultimately.
I see unstructured play almost as research for developers and teachers. It's almost as if players are rewriting, right, a system you've set up, through their play, and that often those revisions are telling you where you need to go. And you see this quite often in kinda mass market games outside of the educational space. I think Fortnite is a great example of this. That, you know, it- it starts as one thing and then through player activity evolves into another and becomes an entirely different game as players engage with it. And that to me, like, play is- is like the ultimate agentive act by students.
Because it's, like, coming from this, like, lizard brain place. And if you really wanna resonate with someone, it's, you wanna, like, capture whatever is emerging there.
[00:13:50] Charlotte Cheng: Love it, when we talk about assessment, that is so much more accurate and valuable than a quiz, right?
[00:13:57] Tanner Higgin: Yes.
[00:13:57] Charlotte Cheng: Because they're- they're actually given the freedom to express that. Now, you worked at Common Sense for a around 10 years. What are some of examples of unstructured play that you've seen while reviewing different EdTech and media platforms? 'Cause I agree, like, World of Warcraft, Fortnite ... I've seen examples of that in the non educational space of games, but how about in the EdTech and education space?
[00:14:18] Tanner Higgin: Yeah, and this was a funny thing at Common Sense, because, at Common Sense, and they still do this, is, you know, rating and reviewing educational products according to a rubric. So, every product would get scored across 14 research based points, and when we would score, a lot of the sort of unstructured experiences would score fairly low, like in the three range, right? Meanwhile, the editorial team at Common Sense, those were some of their favorite experiences. It's just when you put them up against the sort of structures of school and what teachers are expecting, they often scored a little bit low.
So, I'll give you a list of some things that, like, we found that we really loved personally, but if you to Common Sense, you're gonna see some of these [laughs] are, like, three stars. Um ... [laughs]
[00:15:07] Charlotte Cheng: Yeah, yeah. That's s- such an interesting dichotomy.
[00:15:10] Tanner Higgin: Yeah, a bit.
[00:15:10] Charlotte Cheng: But yeah, go for it. Let's- let's hear some examples.
[00:15:12] Tanner Higgin: So, for me, the one that instantly comes to mind is the work of Vectorpark, who's an artist named Patrick Smith, that started just as, like, a digital artist, and was making really kind of creative websites where you s- could sort of push and pull at the sites and discover things along the way. And Patrick started making apps in those early kind of halcyon iPad days, right? Where there was a lot of experimentation, it was really cool. And made a series of- of apps. One that sticks out to me is called Metamorphabet. And essentially it's like this completely unstructured, unguided experience where you're presented with letters, and then through your gestures, you just poke and prod at the letters and they evolve into new things that kind of echo that letter.
And he- he calls it making digital toys, essentially. He puts things in front of you, and you mess with them, and things happen in the experience, that are interesting and delightful and joyful. And we love that, but of course they always [inaudible 00:16:18] [laughs]. I think Little Alchemy's another great example of this. You might've come across this where you combine what they call elements, which will be like fire and stone, and you combine it into, and you generate coal. And you start to fill the screen with elements that you discover by combining two different things. And that's pretty much all you do, but you're trying to kind of get to the end point of discovering everything there is.
I think Tinybop is a good example of taking these kinds of concepts that, especially the teachers out in the audience will be thinking like, "Well, what do I do with that in my curriculum?" Well Tinybop I think is an example of something that sort of takes it the next step, where they- they have a very defined aesthetic in their games, and they're all about open-ended exploration, but they are attached to very clear concepts. In particular I think they do science really well, where they'll have you play with a scenario and discover, like, geology and Earth science, and the way those systems work through your messing with a sort of digital toy in the Vectorpark sense.
To me, ultimately, though, the best ... and I would say the best learning game ever created is Minecraft and probably the best example of unstructured play. You know, and that's one everyone probably knows and can relate to. And I, to me, it's almost like a blueprint for what all learning designers should aim toward. You know, this sort of brilliant system of tools that players can use to design their own learning experiences. And educators can then observe and make into something that really fits into the curriculum as well.
[00:17:58] Charlotte Cheng: Minecraft is a true sandbox, right?
[00:18:01] Tanner Higgin: Yeah.
[00:18:01] Charlotte Cheng: I've seen my four year old play it, I've seen my adult husband play it, [laughs] and, like, that whole span. And we're partnering with Roblox to make a new game on their platform. It's very, like you said, open ended.
[00:18:13] Tanner Higgin: Yeah.
[00:18:14] Charlotte Cheng: And we've been learning from Minecraft too, and whoa, what happens when these kids can run amuck in a land that you've built-
[00:18:20] Tanner Higgin: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:20] Charlotte Cheng: ... and you give them the tools for them to build whatever they want. It's a magic combination.
[00:18:25] Tanner Higgin: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:26] Charlotte Cheng: And I also noticed that in those examples you shared, a lot of exploration was given to the players too. What are some other key factors that can make a successful unstructured play experience, based on all of those examples you've explored?
[00:18:39] Tanner Higgin: Exploration to me is key. And that just speaks to who I am as a player myself. Like, I kind of think there are different types of players. People gravitate towards different things and I'm definitely an explorer. This is something, if you wanna look into it, I think his name's Richard Bartles, some early game studies theory, kind of developed a, "Here are the different player archetypes. And I've- I've always kind of returned to that through my career. So, I definitely think exploration is a part of what makes unstructured play good. And I would say, in addition to that exploration, surprise.
Like, to me, the great thing with any exploratory experience in a game is, if you feel like you've uncovered something, you've turned over a stone, and there's a whole other world of insects growing around in there. Right? That- that always makes games great. I also think, like, great unstructured play sort of has built within it social sort of negotiation. Play just, by its nature seems to attract social engagement. And I- I always think about on my street growing up, going outside, shooting baskets and the- the call of the ball hitting the cement, kids would emerge [laughs] and things would happen, and that experience would lead to something new or a new game we'd design with the basketball, or we would decided to go do something else.
And I think that's one thing that's, like, great about play is that sense of social development and the social negotiation is really key.
[00:20:19] Charlotte Cheng: I agree. I mean, this is the first time we've done this more open ended coding experience. And we're- we're starting to go, "Whoa. Like, what is it like for kids to code together instead of by themselves?" Uh, 'cause the kids are already trying to do that. They're, like, running into each other's spaces and trying to go, "How did you do that?" Or, "How did you get here?" And- and things like that. And it's exciting, but it's also a little scary 'cause I feel like things could go south very quickly. [laughs]
[00:20:46] Tanner Higgin: Yes.
[00:20:46] Charlotte Cheng: If you don't develop it. So, that dives into my next question, what could go wrong? Like, what are some key factors that could make unstructured play unsuccessful for learners?
[00:20:55] Tanner Higgin: Yeah, and you're totally right, and I think there's a lotta trepidation around play in schools because of that rogue element [laughs], and the classroom management challenges. So, I would say in my experience, it's absolutely essential before you do really open-ended play, to setup kind of social contracts, norms, expectations, responsibilities, and to work very hard at that upfront and revisit it constantly. And this is where concepts like digital citizenship I think are really important that they're done in coordination with other kinds of school activity.
You know, teaching kids how to be responsible collaborators. You know, in that coding example for instance, how to give and get feedback, right? Is so important. And I believe you at CodeCombat, that's kind of part of what you're doing as well, is working on some of those soft skills that go alongside coding that make for success in the workforce, and I think that is really key. I would also say that it's important after play experiences to not just move on, right? I kind of mentioned how I see play as research. And I think every play experience should have some kind of reflective activity after it, because that play activity, things will have emerged that you can learn from and iterate on and make it better the next time, particularly around those sort of social negotiations, behavior.
There's things to learn from there, but there's also things to learn from in terms of, like, logistics [laughs] and what was learned, right? That you expected or didn't expect. Listing that, identifying it, and finding out ways to lean into that in the next session I think is- is really important. Otherwise it feels like, well, we just went through this sort of chaotic mess, my classroom's a disaster, the principal's like, "What's going on in that room?" There's all [laughs] sorts of noise. But if you do that follow up and reflection, you actually have evidence of something was accomplished. [laughs]
[00:23:06] Charlotte Cheng: I was gonna say, I was just like, hey, it's great for the students, but it's also [laughs] great for the educators 'cause you have that, like, moment of, "Ah, okay, good." Like, learning did happen even though it was a chaotic mess. So, I'm glad you highlighted that.
[00:23:20] Tanner Higgin: Yeah.
[00:23:20] Charlotte Cheng: Anything else that you think that we should be, like, weary of or- or keep an eye on when we're developing unstructured play?
[00:23:27] Tanner Higgin: Yeah, I also think ... And- and this is understandable, but I think EdTech developers in particular tend to want play to seem like school, right? I think, in my time reviewing all those tools at Common Sense, I would see experiences that had a very playful essence to them, but got bobbed down in sort of classroom restrictions, data capture, assessment, check-ins, you know, sign-ins and, uh, all kinds of things that, like, sell really well to administrators, but kill the joy of play along the way. And I think it's much better to preserve a pure play experience, and then leave those kinds of things out of the experience, and offer them to teachers as, like, modules you can attach to the play experience to make them really work well.
To me, a great example of this is a semi obscure game called Walden, made out of USC, that's based on Henry Thoreau's Walden, and you basically live as Henry Thoreau on Walden Pond, developed by Tracy Fullerton at USC, who's brilliant, one of, like, the best learning game designers, I would say. And that experience is, you're just in that world, doing that stuff, but then they have a robust set of lesson materials that I believe were developed by Matt Farber, and those materials can be used to enrich that game, or you can just play the game, right?
And that to me is, like, the great model where you create a playful experience that can just be that, but you give the materials to teachers to make it even more enriching if they so choose. Right? I think that, to me, is a great balance. 'Cause otherwise you're making this playful experience that, uh, students like, but it's just school. [laughs] I'm doing all ... I'm having to, like, do this checklist of things and fill this out, and that out, and it just ... never gonna get that engagement, it feels.
[00:25:36] Charlotte Cheng: I agree. We even ran into this with Ozaria because we wanted to hit every single, like, CS standard for that middle school band. And we're going, "Okay, some of this ... it would feel so shoehorned- "
[00:25:47] Tanner Higgin: Mm-hmm.
[00:25:47] Charlotte Cheng: " ... if we just put this in the game." So, we created curriculum off the side. But it's- it is tricky, though, because I think even teachers want hand holding on how to-
[00:25:57] Tanner Higgin: Mm-hmm.
[00:25:57] Charlotte Cheng: ... implement it, right? So, we've gotten push back, with like, "No, no, no. Just tell me what to do on day one."
[00:26:02] Tanner Higgin: Mm-hmm.
[00:26:02] Charlotte Cheng: "And tell me what to do on day two." And I've always pushed back and say, "Well, check, like, day one, day two is, how are your students reacting to the game?"
[00:26:10] Tanner Higgin: Mm-hmm.
[00:26:10] Charlotte Cheng: And, like, this is how you can then pick and choose the curriculum that you think will best fit your students. But that takes, like, a specific, like, skill level in the, in the educator to-
[00:26:21] Tanner Higgin: Yeah.
[00:26:21] Charlotte Cheng: ... to sort of be able to do that, right? So, how do you balance that? How do you help an educator balance that unstructured play with the more structured learning experiences that we sort of need, like that assessment, the check-ins, the reflections, the things that the principal will wanna see when they walk into the classroom, you know? Things like that.
Like, what are some things that an educator can do, or someone like us who's developing products for this classroom?
[00:26:45] Tanner Higgin: Well, I think you've touched on a major one that's missing right now, and that I've heard this when I've given talks to rooms of predominantly teachers, around game based learning, is that there's a huge gap for professional development around how to use games and play effectively, just in general. Not even specific platforms, but just how to do it well in general. And I've also heard from teachers that administrators in particular need this help to kind of see and honor how play itself has learning value and doesn't necessarily need all of the extra stuff to make it count.
So, I think that is a big missing piece that there's a market need for profession development around why games are special for learning, how they work, how to structure a game based experience. You know, to strike that balance of structured and unstructured play, I think turn to analog experiences. I think those are much easier to implement. And don't cost much. Can, gotta be tuned to your own needs. Often teachers have more experience with analog games. And I'm talking like card games, board games, field games. Any kind of playful experience that can be implemented, that resonates in a certain way with whatever digital activity or curricular activity you're doing.
I think there's a lot of opportunity for us to discover how we might be able to create an analog play experience that preps a classroom to do some sort of curricular thing, right? And the most extreme example of this was while we were at GameDesk, we were hosting live action role playing games, and designing alternate reality games that were like scavenger hunts around the school, and playing things like Settlers of Catan to lead into math probability lessons. And in the alternate reality game, the scavenger hunt, what students would find would have some sort of fact or knowledge that would lead them into the curriculum they were going to be engaging with.
So, I think there's ways to use play as a discovery period for students that gets them really jazzed and hooked on whatever might be coming up, and then has this special resonance, and is far, far easier to implement. And therefore, you're balancing, like, an unstructured chaotic experience that, like, primes a classroom to have a little bit more interest in whatever curricular objective you're trying to meet.
[00:29:32] Charlotte Cheng: I love that idea, because instead of trying to, like, combine the two so that they're happening at the same time, which I think is a disservice to both types of learning experiences, is to treat it like stages, like you said. Where it's that discovery stage, where it is unstructured play, but then leverage that into more structured learning or structured, like, discovery or learning as well. I love that you mentioned board games. I have a wall of board games. I mean, I could just list off ... Pandemic, I know #too soon, but if you played pandemic cooperatively, it really does shine a light about, "Oh my gosh, like, this is how, like, scientists try and control pandemics." [laughs]
[00:30:09] Tanner Higgin: Yeah.
[00:30:09] Charlotte Cheng: And how they treat, you know? And it- it becomes like a great kickoff for conversation, where you're then delving into the facts and the how's and the why's, uh, of that topic too. So, thanks for sharing that. Now, how could unstructured play impact the future of EdTech? So, from just, like, a board game, like, Agricola or Settlers of Catan, to, like, the games that we're developing for kids to play in the classroom, like Minecraft, or like a game like ours, where could it go? How could that impact the future for our kids and for the world of EdTech?
[00:30:42] Tanner Higgin: To me, especially post 2020, I keep returning to play as ... it- it just seems like an antidote right now, to me, to so much of what ails education in terms of teacher retention, student engagement, social and emotional needs. To me, play is the ultimate way [laughs] to get teachers, like, to rediscover the joy of learning, to help students find meaning in classroom activity, and to give classrooms opportunities to develop true kind of social bonds, right? Play has that potential, and it's so incredibly needed right now.
I kind of see it as ... And this is a buzzword that gets thrown around a lot, but I see it as a revolutionary force in education, if we let it be that. But it just seems like every system in education is aligned against play. [laughs] You know, because it's- it's messy, it's chaotic, it's loud, it sometimes doesn't look like school. It can be hard to see how it meets obligations for testing. And it's all of that is the reason why it's even more important, [laughs] because it's not that.
[00:32:09] Charlotte Cheng: I- I agree, 'cause I mean, I've been talking to teachers where, you know, the kids are coming back from distance learning and they're struggling to just follow social norms in the classroom. I feel like, like you said, the play could sort of be that bridge to them getting acclimated to being in a school again, instead of being at home in front of a laptop. You know? Like, and things like that. And that connection piece. We've been playing board games with my four year old, and seeing how much ... I mean, it's just full of math, you're counting points. It's full of literacy because you're reading the rules and you're reading how to play the game.
It's communication. Like, it, you can build all of that within play. And I think you're right. If it involves some training so that educators and administrators can see that kind of learning in play. It's almost pivotal. It's, like, crucial to make it work in a classroom, right?
[00:32:59] Tanner Higgin: Yeah, I- I love your example of Pandemic and other board games, because I think, to me, wh- when you just devote some time to play through that experience, and don't get too caught up in, "How is this meeting my curricular goals?" Or whatever. What you'll find is that that board game and then experience you had playing becomes a sort of concept map that in subsequent lessons you start referring back to it, right? Like, "Remember in the game where this or that happened?"= Like, it resonates with this that we're learning, and provides a new lens on that experience, or helps you kind of attach it to real world relevance ina way.
You know, Pandemic's all about, like, the different roles and responsibilities in managing something like that, and when you're deep in, you know, a biology lesson or something, you can then return to Pandemic and think about the social consequences, and the different kind of career opportunities, or whatever involved in it.
[00:33:59] Charlotte Cheng: Love it. I mean, it could be just basically that common language-
[00:34:02] Tanner Higgin: Yeah.
[00:34:02] Charlotte Cheng: ... that you can build for a classroom to share it as you're learning this entire subject matter.
[00:34:07] Tanner Higgin: Mm-hmm.
[00:34:07] Charlotte Cheng: Love it. So, thanks for sharing all of that. Now, I'm sure people who are listening are inspired and like, "Okay, I wanna go try that." But what advice would you give to someone who was interested in trying out unstructured play with all of the things that might be scary? Either on the classroom or on the product, uh, de- developing, what's a good place to start?
[00:34:25] Tanner Higgin: The first place to start is with giving yourself permission. I've run surveys with educators around play, and I know for a fact that the vast majority of educators see inherent value in play. And the problem is in a school and classroom environment it feels like you can't do it. You've got other things to do. Got, you know, time limitations. Just do it. Just give yourself permission to do it, because it's going to be valuable for you and your students. And ultimately, you're the best judge of that. And you'll figure it out later. [laughs]
I would also say that in that play experience, learn from it. Treat it as research, follow the fun, find out what in that play experience was especially valuable, and use it the next time to design something even better, or structure it even better. And to do that, make sure that every time you have a playful or game based experience in the classroom, you have some kind of reflective activity afterwards for both you and the students. Particularly to identify where the students thought they were learning and what you were observing in terms of their learning. One of the hardest things for people who engage in games, especially young students who are playing games, they have a very hard time acknowledging what they've done or learned from that game experiences.
And I think teachers can be that partner in that experience to say like, "When you were doing this, I saw you doing this thing, and that is really special," right? And I had a coworker at Common Sense whose son was struggling with, like, literacy, and started playing Minecraft, and she was letting him sort of do fairly unstructured, unguided play, and then had him kind of show his world to her. And she noticed he was creating signs with text, right? And writing, and researching what to write to kind of identify different areas in the game and tell his friends how to navigate certain structures.
And sh- she kind of worked with him to identify that. The things that you are struggling with in school, you're figuring out here, and the student might not even be recognizing that that's happening, right? And that's where the magic truly occurs in a playful experience, I think, in that collaboration between teacher and student.
[00:36:53] Charlotte Cheng: Right, and I- I wanna call out for the people who are developing products, same thing. Like, permission, follow the fun. 'Cause when we go into the classroom, we're play testing, we're often going, "We only get an hour. Let's go, go, go, go, go. Let's just really test this, like, one learning level that we're developing." But I've also discovered when we just give our permission to say, "Go. Go, run. Go run around in the game." And we're just typing what they do and what they're looking for, all of a sudden they relax and they give us really, really powerful feedback about, "Oh, why isn't there a treasure chest here? Oh, why isn't this ... Oh, this is taking forever to run."
And those are things that we never would've gotten, feedback wise, if we had just stuck to the script of-
[00:37:36] Tanner Higgin: Mm-hmm.
[00:37:36] Charlotte Cheng: ... "Okay, go do this level, go finish this thing. Tell us, like, how did that work?" You know? And I think the same there too. So, I love it. Permission, follow the fun, and reflect. That's great advice, right? [laughs] Tanner, thanks so much for being part of our podcast. I sure learned a lot. Please check out the episode description, 'cause we'll have links to all of those great resources and all those great games that you mentioned.
[00:37:57] Tanner Higgin: Thank you.
[00:38:00] Charlotte Cheng: Thanks for listening to EdTech Adventures. Please subscribe to catch more of our episodes and leave a review to support the show. For more resources and info, visit us at codecombat.com/podcast. I'm your host, Charlotte Cheng. We'll see you on our next learning adventure.
[00:00:00] Charlotte Cheng: Welcome to EdTech Adventures. Join us as we explore the role of technology, STEM, and creative play in education. With expert guests, we'll discover how learning is always an adventure. No boundaries, no rules, no expectations, just play. What if all learning experiences followed these four simple guidelines? Today, our guest, Tanner Higgin, will share how unstructured play could be integrated into EdTech and education. We'll review the key components needed to make unstructured play successful, and highlight a few pitfalls of it as well.
Tanner has nearly 20 years of experience in education, first as a teacher and researcher, and later as a learning designer and editorial director. At GameDesk, he helped to create the PlayMaker School and its curriculum. At Common Sense Media, he led the editorial team that rated and reviewed over 4,000 EdTech products. [laughs] He's now the principal consultant at Dune Shift, where he helps EdTech startups and companies make more meaningful and effective content and learning experience. Thanks so much for joining us, Tanner.
[00:01:04] Tanner Higgin: Thank you, Charlotte. I'm excited about this. This is one of my favorite topics.
[00:01:09] Charlotte Cheng: Me too. So, let's start at the beginning of your journey. Could you describe a memorable education experience that you've had as a student?
[00:01:16] Tanner Higgin: For me, the thing that pops into my head is a project I did, I think it was probably late elementary school or early junior high. I wish I could remember the teacher and grade and subject, or a- anything like that of specifics, I just remember the project, which speaks to how valuable the learning experience was, but this was, to my memory, the first, like, truly interest driven project I did. And it was focused on Atlantis. I think maybe the teacher was asking us to look up some sort of mythology, something or other, and I chose Atlantis for some reason.
And I ended up spending far, far more time on this project than I had anything else prior, because we had gotten a computer recently, and I was hooked up to Prodigy internet, and I just started going deep into an internet rabbit hole on Atlantis, and finding all these sources, and I combined it with library sources that I found at the school, and put it all together in, like, this sort of creative brief with pictures embedded in. I can't remember the computer program I was using, but it was one of those things that it was, like, totally self-driven, and I went way above and beyond because it was just, I was interested in the subject matter, and I was discovering, like, an interest in computing and technology, and sort of seeing how the Internet could be a part of that.
And to me, that's, like, become, when I reflect back on my career and where I've ended up, like, in some ways it's sort of that experience that maybe set off that spark. And whoever that teacher was, I don't remember your name [laughs] but thank you. [laughs]
[00:03:05] Charlotte Cheng: I hear you. I- I still call out to Mr. Madkins, Mrs. Bowcot, Ms. Smith. There's certain pivotal teachers-
[00:03:12] Tanner Higgin: Yeah.
[00:03:12] Charlotte Cheng: ... that have touched ... Usually when I ask this question, it's always that one teacher, or that one project that really-
[00:03:19] Tanner Higgin: Yeah.
[00:03:19] Charlotte Cheng: ... like you said, it lit the spark of interest and, "Oh, this is what learning can be." I remember exactly like you, given the freedom to just dive into a project. And weirdly, it was the film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
[00:03:32] Tanner Higgin: Mm-hmm.
[00:03:32] Charlotte Cheng: And how that reflects how our government works. And I also put together a binder. I went online.
[00:03:39] Tanner Higgin: Yeah.
[00:03:39] Charlotte Cheng: Found these diagrams, printed them out, like, explained the thing. And I- I still have that binder. Like, it's that pivotal. That's awesome to share. [laughs]
[00:03:46] Tanner Higgin: I wonder ... So, this is my theory about that. My belief is that everyone's answer starts with interest, right? And that, like, in terms of my values as an educator and learning designer, it's all about capturing student interest and then aiding their agency to go seek out and find and structure their own learning. And I found whenever I've asked that question to someone, that project or that experience often revolves around their own personal passions. And it's like, if we would all just understand that and start organizing education around that, like, maybe every day would be that exciting, right?
[00:04:26] Charlotte Cheng: Yeah, agreed. It can be scary, though. So, you- you were a teacher too.
[00:04:29] Tanner Higgin: Yeah.
[00:04:30] Charlotte Cheng: For me, I remember, like, my first year, it's sort of scary, 'cause you have classroom management issues and things like that. And so you sort of wanna be in control, which is the opposite of what you need to do to allow for that type of freedom. Like you said, that agency. Did you try and practice that when you were a teacher in the classroom?
[00:04:47] Tanner Higgin: I tried. [laughs]
[00:04:48] Charlotte Cheng: [laughs]
[00:04:48] Tanner Higgin: So, this is the classic, someone who, you know, preaches something but then, you know, in practice ... And it really does come down to, to me, curricular obligations are really, to me, even more than classroom management, the amount of content anyone has to cover in the given set, in the given amount of time, makes it so difficult to do fully interest driven work, because you just have to plow through content. And interest driven work relies on, like, going deep and sort of giving someone the space to discover and have things emerge that might be off the curricular map, right? So, in limited cases, I feel like I was very successful with it, but never quite in- in terms of a full class curriculum.
[00:05:41] Charlotte Cheng: I feel like yeah, I agree in the moments piece. You would have moments of that and then it would just go away.
[00:05:48] Tanner Higgin: Yeah.
[00:05:48] Charlotte Cheng: Because you had to deal with assessment and things like that.
[00:05:50] Tanner Higgin: Mm-hmm.
[00:05:51] Charlotte Cheng: Is that how you became interested in the world of EdTech? Like, as you were teaching, exploring and running into that kind of a- a struggle?
[00:05:58] Tanner Higgin: Yeah, in some ways I think ... So, I always had this interest in tech, and I was one of those young people who was on the early internet making websites and tinkering and getting really involved in online communities and forums on AOL and that kind of thing. So, it'd been a current throughout my life, and then I went to grad school, and was teaching and studying, and went in as, like, a British Romanticist, studying literature, and within the first year, had switched over entirely to focusing just on games. Because I had discovered in some classes, and I went to UC Riverside, with some really brilliant professors there, most certainly James Tobias, who's still there.
That, like, you could just, you could do work on games, like, they were a media form just like literature, and you can study it. So, I began studying it and really digging deep into the history of technology. What's kind of called science in technology studies in academia. And one of the key sort of obsessions of that area of academia is unpacking the tension between technology and culture. The way technology can accelerate the culture from which it emerges and can accelerate both the good and bad based on your own value system, right?
And I became fascinated in the way this applies to learning and play. Because when we use a tool in education, or design a tool in education, there's the potential of a technology to vastly expand kind of the creative capability of what students are doing, and give them all of these opportunities. But it also equally often aids surveillance and data capture, and incredible control over a student experience. And we see this in games as well. Games can be, like, joyful and open ended, or they can feel like rote and onerous, right? In World of Warcraft you can feel like you're exploring this virtual world and traveling with friends and doing all these amazing things, or when you're doing, like, high end raiding with groups of people, it feels like a job. Like- [laughs] like you're working a job, right?
[00:08:17] Charlotte Cheng: Yeah, being someone who dove heavily into WoW as a-
[00:08:22] Tanner Higgin: [laughs]
[00:08:22] Charlotte Cheng: ... Gnome Mage, who, like, I dipped into the raiding and was so, felt completely out of love with that area. But I was the one who would just run through towns having dance parties and collecting pets.
[00:08:33] Tanner Higgin: Yeah.
[00:08:33] Charlotte Cheng: And I think it's so interesting that in that game, like, it was so expansive [laughs] that it allowed for both of those experiences to exist-
[00:08:42] Tanner Higgin: Yeah.
[00:08:42] Charlotte Cheng: ... within one game. But I agree, there's like, within that one game, you could see the positives and negatives of what it could accelerate. Because, oh, man, some of those raids, people were yelling at each other, [laughs] and being very, uh, non-cooperative.
[00:08:56] Tanner Higgin: Mm-hmm.
[00:08:56] Charlotte Cheng: So, yeah, uh, there is a danger in that too. And I think this is even more relevant in the world of AI. We've been talking about how AI also accelerates along these tracks too. Both in data capture but also in freedom of expression and freedom of creation. So, this really delves into the topic that we highlighted in the beginning, unstructured play. So, in your work and what you've done, what does unstructured play mean to you? Whether it's in games or any of the other learning experiences that you've worked on?
[00:09:24] Tanner Higgin: This is a tricky question, because play and games, right, are interconnected. So, when you talk about unstructured play, but then games are highly structured, definitionally it starts to get a little cloudy. But I would say that in my view, unstructured play, the key aspect of it is freedom and choice. And a very particular kind of choice, non-trivial choice. So, in a lot of EdTech you'll see choice being marketed. But that is choice of very kind of constricted systems where there's not much you can do in a game.
It's like, "Click this button to throw a ball through a hoop and then do a math problem in between," or whatever. But for me, unstructured play is all about non-trivial choice, where the choice a student or player is given impacts the play in very significant ways, and allows them opportunities to really restructure the very play experience toward their own end. So, the World of Warcraft example, uh, you know, that is a game. It's got rules and systems and goals and outcomes, and all that stuff. But you were able to carve out within that system a way of playing that felt unique to you, that was expressing your own interest, and I think that's what we have to strive for when we're doing unstructured play in learning environments is giving students the feeling that they're making a play experience their own.
And that it can evolve democratically, right? That there is a freedom of choice that is either determined by yourself alone or with the group of people you're playing with. That to me is really the ultimate essence of it.
[00:11:16] Charlotte Cheng: Yeah, non trivial choice, I like how you're pairing those two. I keep hearing, "Voice and choice," but sometimes that choice and that voice is sort of trivial, what we offer them. And I think part of it is, we've offered choice in CodeCombat and Ozaria are our chord games. And some of them are semi trivial, where it's just cosmetics, but some are non-trivial where you're putting on gear that affects your ability to use code to complete levels. And those non-trivial choices take so much longer to develop.
[00:11:46] Tanner Higgin: Mm-hmm.
[00:11:46] Charlotte Cheng: I mean, like, you're creating multiple paths 'cause you can't anticipate what they choose. So, it's a lot of more development time. So, why should we care? Like, what kind of benefits do learners get when they experience unstructured play to- to warrant all of that extra work on the design side or on the educator side?
[00:12:03] Tanner Higgin: Well, I think from a developer's perspective, and, uh, this is equally as well teachers, I would say, but to me the big benefit is you'll learn a lot from your players if you give them that choice and you're talking with your players and observing them, you'll start to see how they're playing, and you should just follow that, right? Like, you can learn so much from a student who's sort of evolving a lesson or game that you've structured in new ways and pushing against the boundaries. And if you follow their lead, I think it's going to lead to more learning and engagement, ultimately.
I see unstructured play almost as research for developers and teachers. It's almost as if players are rewriting, right, a system you've set up, through their play, and that often those revisions are telling you where you need to go. And you see this quite often in kinda mass market games outside of the educational space. I think Fortnite is a great example of this. That, you know, it- it starts as one thing and then through player activity evolves into another and becomes an entirely different game as players engage with it. And that to me, like, play is- is like the ultimate agentive act by students.
Because it's, like, coming from this, like, lizard brain place. And if you really wanna resonate with someone, it's, you wanna, like, capture whatever is emerging there.
[00:13:50] Charlotte Cheng: Love it, when we talk about assessment, that is so much more accurate and valuable than a quiz, right?
[00:13:57] Tanner Higgin: Yes.
[00:13:57] Charlotte Cheng: Because they're- they're actually given the freedom to express that. Now, you worked at Common Sense for a around 10 years. What are some of examples of unstructured play that you've seen while reviewing different EdTech and media platforms? 'Cause I agree, like, World of Warcraft, Fortnite ... I've seen examples of that in the non educational space of games, but how about in the EdTech and education space?
[00:14:18] Tanner Higgin: Yeah, and this was a funny thing at Common Sense, because, at Common Sense, and they still do this, is, you know, rating and reviewing educational products according to a rubric. So, every product would get scored across 14 research based points, and when we would score, a lot of the sort of unstructured experiences would score fairly low, like in the three range, right? Meanwhile, the editorial team at Common Sense, those were some of their favorite experiences. It's just when you put them up against the sort of structures of school and what teachers are expecting, they often scored a little bit low.
So, I'll give you a list of some things that, like, we found that we really loved personally, but if you to Common Sense, you're gonna see some of these [laughs] are, like, three stars. Um ... [laughs]
[00:15:07] Charlotte Cheng: Yeah, yeah. That's s- such an interesting dichotomy.
[00:15:10] Tanner Higgin: Yeah, a bit.
[00:15:10] Charlotte Cheng: But yeah, go for it. Let's- let's hear some examples.
[00:15:12] Tanner Higgin: So, for me, the one that instantly comes to mind is the work of Vectorpark, who's an artist named Patrick Smith, that started just as, like, a digital artist, and was making really kind of creative websites where you s- could sort of push and pull at the sites and discover things along the way. And Patrick started making apps in those early kind of halcyon iPad days, right? Where there was a lot of experimentation, it was really cool. And made a series of- of apps. One that sticks out to me is called Metamorphabet. And essentially it's like this completely unstructured, unguided experience where you're presented with letters, and then through your gestures, you just poke and prod at the letters and they evolve into new things that kind of echo that letter.
And he- he calls it making digital toys, essentially. He puts things in front of you, and you mess with them, and things happen in the experience, that are interesting and delightful and joyful. And we love that, but of course they always [inaudible 00:16:18] [laughs]. I think Little Alchemy's another great example of this. You might've come across this where you combine what they call elements, which will be like fire and stone, and you combine it into, and you generate coal. And you start to fill the screen with elements that you discover by combining two different things. And that's pretty much all you do, but you're trying to kind of get to the end point of discovering everything there is.
I think Tinybop is a good example of taking these kinds of concepts that, especially the teachers out in the audience will be thinking like, "Well, what do I do with that in my curriculum?" Well Tinybop I think is an example of something that sort of takes it the next step, where they- they have a very defined aesthetic in their games, and they're all about open-ended exploration, but they are attached to very clear concepts. In particular I think they do science really well, where they'll have you play with a scenario and discover, like, geology and Earth science, and the way those systems work through your messing with a sort of digital toy in the Vectorpark sense.
To me, ultimately, though, the best ... and I would say the best learning game ever created is Minecraft and probably the best example of unstructured play. You know, and that's one everyone probably knows and can relate to. And I, to me, it's almost like a blueprint for what all learning designers should aim toward. You know, this sort of brilliant system of tools that players can use to design their own learning experiences. And educators can then observe and make into something that really fits into the curriculum as well.
[00:17:58] Charlotte Cheng: Minecraft is a true sandbox, right?
[00:18:01] Tanner Higgin: Yeah.
[00:18:01] Charlotte Cheng: I've seen my four year old play it, I've seen my adult husband play it, [laughs] and, like, that whole span. And we're partnering with Roblox to make a new game on their platform. It's very, like you said, open ended.
[00:18:13] Tanner Higgin: Yeah.
[00:18:14] Charlotte Cheng: And we've been learning from Minecraft too, and whoa, what happens when these kids can run amuck in a land that you've built-
[00:18:20] Tanner Higgin: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:20] Charlotte Cheng: ... and you give them the tools for them to build whatever they want. It's a magic combination.
[00:18:25] Tanner Higgin: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:26] Charlotte Cheng: And I also noticed that in those examples you shared, a lot of exploration was given to the players too. What are some other key factors that can make a successful unstructured play experience, based on all of those examples you've explored?
[00:18:39] Tanner Higgin: Exploration to me is key. And that just speaks to who I am as a player myself. Like, I kind of think there are different types of players. People gravitate towards different things and I'm definitely an explorer. This is something, if you wanna look into it, I think his name's Richard Bartles, some early game studies theory, kind of developed a, "Here are the different player archetypes. And I've- I've always kind of returned to that through my career. So, I definitely think exploration is a part of what makes unstructured play good. And I would say, in addition to that exploration, surprise.
Like, to me, the great thing with any exploratory experience in a game is, if you feel like you've uncovered something, you've turned over a stone, and there's a whole other world of insects growing around in there. Right? That- that always makes games great. I also think, like, great unstructured play sort of has built within it social sort of negotiation. Play just, by its nature seems to attract social engagement. And I- I always think about on my street growing up, going outside, shooting baskets and the- the call of the ball hitting the cement, kids would emerge [laughs] and things would happen, and that experience would lead to something new or a new game we'd design with the basketball, or we would decided to go do something else.
And I think that's one thing that's, like, great about play is that sense of social development and the social negotiation is really key.
[00:20:19] Charlotte Cheng: I agree. I mean, this is the first time we've done this more open ended coding experience. And we're- we're starting to go, "Whoa. Like, what is it like for kids to code together instead of by themselves?" Uh, 'cause the kids are already trying to do that. They're, like, running into each other's spaces and trying to go, "How did you do that?" Or, "How did you get here?" And- and things like that. And it's exciting, but it's also a little scary 'cause I feel like things could go south very quickly. [laughs]
[00:20:46] Tanner Higgin: Yes.
[00:20:46] Charlotte Cheng: If you don't develop it. So, that dives into my next question, what could go wrong? Like, what are some key factors that could make unstructured play unsuccessful for learners?
[00:20:55] Tanner Higgin: Yeah, and you're totally right, and I think there's a lotta trepidation around play in schools because of that rogue element [laughs], and the classroom management challenges. So, I would say in my experience, it's absolutely essential before you do really open-ended play, to setup kind of social contracts, norms, expectations, responsibilities, and to work very hard at that upfront and revisit it constantly. And this is where concepts like digital citizenship I think are really important that they're done in coordination with other kinds of school activity.
You know, teaching kids how to be responsible collaborators. You know, in that coding example for instance, how to give and get feedback, right? Is so important. And I believe you at CodeCombat, that's kind of part of what you're doing as well, is working on some of those soft skills that go alongside coding that make for success in the workforce, and I think that is really key. I would also say that it's important after play experiences to not just move on, right? I kind of mentioned how I see play as research. And I think every play experience should have some kind of reflective activity after it, because that play activity, things will have emerged that you can learn from and iterate on and make it better the next time, particularly around those sort of social negotiations, behavior.
There's things to learn from there, but there's also things to learn from in terms of, like, logistics [laughs] and what was learned, right? That you expected or didn't expect. Listing that, identifying it, and finding out ways to lean into that in the next session I think is- is really important. Otherwise it feels like, well, we just went through this sort of chaotic mess, my classroom's a disaster, the principal's like, "What's going on in that room?" There's all [laughs] sorts of noise. But if you do that follow up and reflection, you actually have evidence of something was accomplished. [laughs]
[00:23:06] Charlotte Cheng: I was gonna say, I was just like, hey, it's great for the students, but it's also [laughs] great for the educators 'cause you have that, like, moment of, "Ah, okay, good." Like, learning did happen even though it was a chaotic mess. So, I'm glad you highlighted that.
[00:23:20] Tanner Higgin: Yeah.
[00:23:20] Charlotte Cheng: Anything else that you think that we should be, like, weary of or- or keep an eye on when we're developing unstructured play?
[00:23:27] Tanner Higgin: Yeah, I also think ... And- and this is understandable, but I think EdTech developers in particular tend to want play to seem like school, right? I think, in my time reviewing all those tools at Common Sense, I would see experiences that had a very playful essence to them, but got bobbed down in sort of classroom restrictions, data capture, assessment, check-ins, you know, sign-ins and, uh, all kinds of things that, like, sell really well to administrators, but kill the joy of play along the way. And I think it's much better to preserve a pure play experience, and then leave those kinds of things out of the experience, and offer them to teachers as, like, modules you can attach to the play experience to make them really work well.
To me, a great example of this is a semi obscure game called Walden, made out of USC, that's based on Henry Thoreau's Walden, and you basically live as Henry Thoreau on Walden Pond, developed by Tracy Fullerton at USC, who's brilliant, one of, like, the best learning game designers, I would say. And that experience is, you're just in that world, doing that stuff, but then they have a robust set of lesson materials that I believe were developed by Matt Farber, and those materials can be used to enrich that game, or you can just play the game, right?
And that to me is, like, the great model where you create a playful experience that can just be that, but you give the materials to teachers to make it even more enriching if they so choose. Right? I think that, to me, is a great balance. 'Cause otherwise you're making this playful experience that, uh, students like, but it's just school. [laughs] I'm doing all ... I'm having to, like, do this checklist of things and fill this out, and that out, and it just ... never gonna get that engagement, it feels.
[00:25:36] Charlotte Cheng: I agree. We even ran into this with Ozaria because we wanted to hit every single, like, CS standard for that middle school band. And we're going, "Okay, some of this ... it would feel so shoehorned- "
[00:25:47] Tanner Higgin: Mm-hmm.
[00:25:47] Charlotte Cheng: " ... if we just put this in the game." So, we created curriculum off the side. But it's- it is tricky, though, because I think even teachers want hand holding on how to-
[00:25:57] Tanner Higgin: Mm-hmm.
[00:25:57] Charlotte Cheng: ... implement it, right? So, we've gotten push back, with like, "No, no, no. Just tell me what to do on day one."
[00:26:02] Tanner Higgin: Mm-hmm.
[00:26:02] Charlotte Cheng: "And tell me what to do on day two." And I've always pushed back and say, "Well, check, like, day one, day two is, how are your students reacting to the game?"
[00:26:10] Tanner Higgin: Mm-hmm.
[00:26:10] Charlotte Cheng: And, like, this is how you can then pick and choose the curriculum that you think will best fit your students. But that takes, like, a specific, like, skill level in the, in the educator to-
[00:26:21] Tanner Higgin: Yeah.
[00:26:21] Charlotte Cheng: ... to sort of be able to do that, right? So, how do you balance that? How do you help an educator balance that unstructured play with the more structured learning experiences that we sort of need, like that assessment, the check-ins, the reflections, the things that the principal will wanna see when they walk into the classroom, you know? Things like that.
Like, what are some things that an educator can do, or someone like us who's developing products for this classroom?
[00:26:45] Tanner Higgin: Well, I think you've touched on a major one that's missing right now, and that I've heard this when I've given talks to rooms of predominantly teachers, around game based learning, is that there's a huge gap for professional development around how to use games and play effectively, just in general. Not even specific platforms, but just how to do it well in general. And I've also heard from teachers that administrators in particular need this help to kind of see and honor how play itself has learning value and doesn't necessarily need all of the extra stuff to make it count.
So, I think that is a big missing piece that there's a market need for profession development around why games are special for learning, how they work, how to structure a game based experience. You know, to strike that balance of structured and unstructured play, I think turn to analog experiences. I think those are much easier to implement. And don't cost much. Can, gotta be tuned to your own needs. Often teachers have more experience with analog games. And I'm talking like card games, board games, field games. Any kind of playful experience that can be implemented, that resonates in a certain way with whatever digital activity or curricular activity you're doing.
I think there's a lot of opportunity for us to discover how we might be able to create an analog play experience that preps a classroom to do some sort of curricular thing, right? And the most extreme example of this was while we were at GameDesk, we were hosting live action role playing games, and designing alternate reality games that were like scavenger hunts around the school, and playing things like Settlers of Catan to lead into math probability lessons. And in the alternate reality game, the scavenger hunt, what students would find would have some sort of fact or knowledge that would lead them into the curriculum they were going to be engaging with.
So, I think there's ways to use play as a discovery period for students that gets them really jazzed and hooked on whatever might be coming up, and then has this special resonance, and is far, far easier to implement. And therefore, you're balancing, like, an unstructured chaotic experience that, like, primes a classroom to have a little bit more interest in whatever curricular objective you're trying to meet.
[00:29:32] Charlotte Cheng: I love that idea, because instead of trying to, like, combine the two so that they're happening at the same time, which I think is a disservice to both types of learning experiences, is to treat it like stages, like you said. Where it's that discovery stage, where it is unstructured play, but then leverage that into more structured learning or structured, like, discovery or learning as well. I love that you mentioned board games. I have a wall of board games. I mean, I could just list off ... Pandemic, I know #too soon, but if you played pandemic cooperatively, it really does shine a light about, "Oh my gosh, like, this is how, like, scientists try and control pandemics." [laughs]
[00:30:09] Tanner Higgin: Yeah.
[00:30:09] Charlotte Cheng: And how they treat, you know? And it- it becomes like a great kickoff for conversation, where you're then delving into the facts and the how's and the why's, uh, of that topic too. So, thanks for sharing that. Now, how could unstructured play impact the future of EdTech? So, from just, like, a board game, like, Agricola or Settlers of Catan, to, like, the games that we're developing for kids to play in the classroom, like Minecraft, or like a game like ours, where could it go? How could that impact the future for our kids and for the world of EdTech?
[00:30:42] Tanner Higgin: To me, especially post 2020, I keep returning to play as ... it- it just seems like an antidote right now, to me, to so much of what ails education in terms of teacher retention, student engagement, social and emotional needs. To me, play is the ultimate way [laughs] to get teachers, like, to rediscover the joy of learning, to help students find meaning in classroom activity, and to give classrooms opportunities to develop true kind of social bonds, right? Play has that potential, and it's so incredibly needed right now.
I kind of see it as ... And this is a buzzword that gets thrown around a lot, but I see it as a revolutionary force in education, if we let it be that. But it just seems like every system in education is aligned against play. [laughs] You know, because it's- it's messy, it's chaotic, it's loud, it sometimes doesn't look like school. It can be hard to see how it meets obligations for testing. And it's all of that is the reason why it's even more important, [laughs] because it's not that.
[00:32:09] Charlotte Cheng: I- I agree, 'cause I mean, I've been talking to teachers where, you know, the kids are coming back from distance learning and they're struggling to just follow social norms in the classroom. I feel like, like you said, the play could sort of be that bridge to them getting acclimated to being in a school again, instead of being at home in front of a laptop. You know? Like, and things like that. And that connection piece. We've been playing board games with my four year old, and seeing how much ... I mean, it's just full of math, you're counting points. It's full of literacy because you're reading the rules and you're reading how to play the game.
It's communication. Like, it, you can build all of that within play. And I think you're right. If it involves some training so that educators and administrators can see that kind of learning in play. It's almost pivotal. It's, like, crucial to make it work in a classroom, right?
[00:32:59] Tanner Higgin: Yeah, I- I love your example of Pandemic and other board games, because I think, to me, wh- when you just devote some time to play through that experience, and don't get too caught up in, "How is this meeting my curricular goals?" Or whatever. What you'll find is that that board game and then experience you had playing becomes a sort of concept map that in subsequent lessons you start referring back to it, right? Like, "Remember in the game where this or that happened?"= Like, it resonates with this that we're learning, and provides a new lens on that experience, or helps you kind of attach it to real world relevance ina way.
You know, Pandemic's all about, like, the different roles and responsibilities in managing something like that, and when you're deep in, you know, a biology lesson or something, you can then return to Pandemic and think about the social consequences, and the different kind of career opportunities, or whatever involved in it.
[00:33:59] Charlotte Cheng: Love it. I mean, it could be just basically that common language-
[00:34:02] Tanner Higgin: Yeah.
[00:34:02] Charlotte Cheng: ... that you can build for a classroom to share it as you're learning this entire subject matter.
[00:34:07] Tanner Higgin: Mm-hmm.
[00:34:07] Charlotte Cheng: Love it. So, thanks for sharing all of that. Now, I'm sure people who are listening are inspired and like, "Okay, I wanna go try that." But what advice would you give to someone who was interested in trying out unstructured play with all of the things that might be scary? Either on the classroom or on the product, uh, de- developing, what's a good place to start?
[00:34:25] Tanner Higgin: The first place to start is with giving yourself permission. I've run surveys with educators around play, and I know for a fact that the vast majority of educators see inherent value in play. And the problem is in a school and classroom environment it feels like you can't do it. You've got other things to do. Got, you know, time limitations. Just do it. Just give yourself permission to do it, because it's going to be valuable for you and your students. And ultimately, you're the best judge of that. And you'll figure it out later. [laughs]
I would also say that in that play experience, learn from it. Treat it as research, follow the fun, find out what in that play experience was especially valuable, and use it the next time to design something even better, or structure it even better. And to do that, make sure that every time you have a playful or game based experience in the classroom, you have some kind of reflective activity afterwards for both you and the students. Particularly to identify where the students thought they were learning and what you were observing in terms of their learning. One of the hardest things for people who engage in games, especially young students who are playing games, they have a very hard time acknowledging what they've done or learned from that game experiences.
And I think teachers can be that partner in that experience to say like, "When you were doing this, I saw you doing this thing, and that is really special," right? And I had a coworker at Common Sense whose son was struggling with, like, literacy, and started playing Minecraft, and she was letting him sort of do fairly unstructured, unguided play, and then had him kind of show his world to her. And she noticed he was creating signs with text, right? And writing, and researching what to write to kind of identify different areas in the game and tell his friends how to navigate certain structures.
And sh- she kind of worked with him to identify that. The things that you are struggling with in school, you're figuring out here, and the student might not even be recognizing that that's happening, right? And that's where the magic truly occurs in a playful experience, I think, in that collaboration between teacher and student.
[00:36:53] Charlotte Cheng: Right, and I- I wanna call out for the people who are developing products, same thing. Like, permission, follow the fun. 'Cause when we go into the classroom, we're play testing, we're often going, "We only get an hour. Let's go, go, go, go, go. Let's just really test this, like, one learning level that we're developing." But I've also discovered when we just give our permission to say, "Go. Go, run. Go run around in the game." And we're just typing what they do and what they're looking for, all of a sudden they relax and they give us really, really powerful feedback about, "Oh, why isn't there a treasure chest here? Oh, why isn't this ... Oh, this is taking forever to run."
And those are things that we never would've gotten, feedback wise, if we had just stuck to the script of-
[00:37:36] Tanner Higgin: Mm-hmm.
[00:37:36] Charlotte Cheng: ... "Okay, go do this level, go finish this thing. Tell us, like, how did that work?" You know? And I think the same there too. So, I love it. Permission, follow the fun, and reflect. That's great advice, right? [laughs] Tanner, thanks so much for being part of our podcast. I sure learned a lot. Please check out the episode description, 'cause we'll have links to all of those great resources and all those great games that you mentioned.
[00:37:57] Tanner Higgin: Thank you.
[00:38:00] Charlotte Cheng: Thanks for listening to EdTech Adventures. Please subscribe to catch more of our episodes and leave a review to support the show. For more resources and info, visit us at codecombat.com/podcast. I'm your host, Charlotte Cheng. We'll see you on our next learning adventure.
