Emotional Scaffolding

Talking about an emotional roller coaster! I was doing just fine this morning, yet I fell apart completely by 10 pm. Why? Maybe it is the fact that I at time, as many grad students seem to experience, can't see the trees in the forest. My tasks are simple:
1) Write paper by this weekend (due June 1 but allowing time for edits) on my TGfU poster.
2) Write thesis.
In fact, I should not even be worrying about the thesis, see doing it again! Right now, I am focused, or at least should be on my paper, which talks about a small part of my thesis and may in fact be a chapter in my thesis, which is always a good thing. However, realizing that this paper will be 4500 words, I starting thinking that my thesis should include a various amount of chapters all about 4500 words each, which is just stupid to think that but alas.
After communicating my plans for the paper with one of my committee members, I heard what in fact I knew, that I should focus on my paper on one aspect of the thesis. While I created my poster in a more general sense, writing a paper like that would mean submitting an entire thesis. So, when I thought of wikis and TGfU: a collaborative approach to games education, I decided to take a closer look at collaboration in wikis, and how collaboration affects learning. In fact, through the study, I found out that in order for students to learn more about games education, not just superficial learning but really learning or "deep learning", the students expressed that they must do 3 things: collaborate, equally contribute and communicate. The word collaboration in a wiki means creating interactions with the content, yet because the content is created by the students, it means to have interactions with the various levels of text, created, edited and enhanced by students. Learning seems to happen by building on their own previous knowledge and on each other's ideas. This notion of scaffolding comes from Vygotsky who looks at teaching from a student centered approach. Scaffolding means creating knowledge from the ground up. You start with the student, who brings with him/her experiences and knowledge, which is different from anyone. In order to enhance that knowledge, teaching new knowledge is in order. A variety of ways exist to teach concepts that are new, but from a student centered approach, direct teaching would not be one of them. If you teach in a direct fashion you would tell the student the knowledge you think it needs to know, without considering whether or not that student has the necessary prior knowledge to understand the new concepts. The way that I learn, and I truly believe it is the only way I learn, is by building onto my prior knowledge. I still remember times where something very simple was taught to me, but unless I memorized for the sake of memorizing, i would not understand the concept because I could not relate to it. If there was nothing in my repertoire that would somehow relate to the concept I was suppose to understand, there was no way I would remember it, let alone understand it. So, the only way I learnt was by teaching me something that would build on something that I already knew. Now, I am sure I am not the only one that learns this way and in fact, I think most students learn this way. If this is the case, than the only way to teach is student centered from the bottom up. First, getting to know you students and what they know, and second, build on their learning. This, with a class of 30 may not always be possible, even though I could come up with some projects that would proceed in that way. Technology, more specifically wikis can actually facilitate this process. In fact, let's say you begin with a certain heading, for example: history of TGfU. Through research, students will find the answers, because history is written somewhere and you pretty much have to find accurate sources so you can validate that what you are writing down is in fact the history behind TGfU. To do so, you should check different sources, a form of triangulation. teaching applications, skills and concepts, are all things that could easily be found through research as well. This shows me that when students did not provide the wiki with the correct content, the students did not triangulate or check a variety of sources. They also did not read and try to understand the parts because if they would have read the content, they may have noticed it was not correct. Also a factor may be that the model was not in their prior knowledge. This would be unlikely as they were taught these concept in class before hand and as they are working in groups of 7, I am sure one student understood. Than again, if one student creates text, did other read it? So there could be many causes for failing to provide the content under the scaffold the teacher provided. If the students, in the pilot, did not get the scaffold, it must be more clearly defined. The third section of the wiki requested that the students apply their knowledge in developing games according to the TGfU approach. This section is where most students struggled. IN fact, the findings show that starting in week 4, most students explained they were lost. They just did not understand was they needed to go, so students just added something. Because we wanted to see if a wiki and scaffolds could hold on its own, the teacher refrained from interfering. The study shows that the students reflected on their frustrations in the journals but did not ask the teacher any questions on how to do it. This shows me that either they thought that the teacher would respond to the journals and because the teacher did not, they must have been doing something right or, it may also be that they thought they could solve the problem as a group and once one student added text, the rest went with it. Even if a student really knew it was not the right way, they still went with it. This also may have to do with the length of the project as it was a pilot, 5 weeks. So, in order for a student to meet the weekly requirements, they just complied with the rest of the group, even though some may knew that it was not correct.
Scaffolding, as I mentioned starts from the bottom up. First the teacher provides scaffolds, meaning headings or titles. These should create a reaction from the students so they would interact with the content in form of doing research and submit their findings below. This process does not require a lot of thought so it should be easy if the scaffold provided is in fact a specific concept, such as history for example. The teacher provided history and philosophy scaffolds for the students in order for them to understand the foundation of this approach. Later on, as the students were to design their own games according to the approach, they had to know and understand the approach to do so. But in fact, the third section seemed extremely difficult for the students. Only one group actually managed to complete the task, however, the games were not in progression as was requested. The two games belonged to the same category but did not show a connection between them. You could not flow from one progression to the next.
This shows me that the third step was too big of a step. I assume that because of the massive response of the students, who just did not get it, but also from my own experience teaching the approach. When teaching how to build a progression according to the TGfU model, I started with an initial warm-up game (modified), than practice tasks within game forms connected to the modified game and the tactical objective and later flowing into another game, which would focus in on practice and assessment. I still recall that it took some time for students to understand that progression and I made it as simple as possible. I say simple, because I focused mainly on tactics and also I explained mainly creating open space. I also did not mention the pedagogical principles of exaggeration and simplification and so on. The reason why in fact,in theory I did cover all of the 6 steps in the TGfU model, but not in practice is because I only had one class and needed to keep it simple. I also followed lessons where the students needed to create lesson plans on BMS with those 3 parts in mind (warm-up, acquiring, closing activity). IN order to show consistency, the only thing I changed was adding the tactical focus and teaching using questioning.
Knowing that that is the only two aspects I changed and still students had some difficulty, the scaffolds provided on the wiki could have been too complex. I believe that with a simple template, where each section is clearly defined, the students could have been more successful.
When going back to scaffolding again, the first two sections initiated and facilitated scaffolding, meaning, students were able to feed of each other and build on each others' knowledge. The good thing about wikis and working as a class or group is that you combine strengths. So, some students who have prior knowledge on the subject can start and others can build on as they begin to understand the concepts themselves. In the final section, scaffolding did not seem to occur much. The only time students were scaffolding is directly related to the games, meaning the explanation of the games, which were new and possible modification to the games. Students have long been introduced to adaptation of games and how to do that. So many of the students reflected in their journals that from reading the game, they were able to add something to it, to make to game more or less challenging. The students did not however see the need to produce the progression of games. Only one student reflected upon his frustrations that the games are not in a progressive form, they are simple independent games and he felt it was wrong. That the games should be connected in some way from simple to more complex, just as he was taught in class. From the researcher's perspective, if only one student realizes the intent of the scaffold, than that shows that the scaffold did not initiate the process of scaffolding. It shows that scaffolds need to be produced in small steps, one at a time and they should be clearly defined so students know what is asked of them.
I am suddenly realizing that I just wrote the outline of my paper, even though this is much of a reflective piece and the voice of the students must still be integrated, I feel much better now, realizing that I can take this and organize my thoughts better.
I wrote my title as emotional scaffolding because I think I build on my own feelings. If I feel down, I usually think of good things in order to alter the course of my emotions. This time however, it is not as easy to get out of this mood and if you begin to think about one stressful thing that leads to another and yet another, soon, you lose control and break down. That is pretty much what happened. I was doing well today but seeing how much work I had to do made me focus on things I had to do next week and deadlines that are creeping up, instead of thinking of one concept after another just as I had outlined: scaffolding, scaffolding in wikis, wikis and TGfU,...
Next time I should get to my blog sooner so I would avoid the hassle of the emotional roller coaster, as I know, for me, that reflecting upon my experiences clears things up in my head. Suddenly I can see trees!