Based on the information that was gathered in Phase II, I decided to create a game in order to learn Neuroscience. The game that I have chosen is Pictionary. For this game, I will divide the class into different teams. Then one person from the team will have to get up and draw a topic from the neuroscience chapter. Some of the topics they would need to be able to draw would include the impact of a severed corpus callosum, the impact of a specific neuron, and the impact of each part of the brain. This learning strategy would require the students to have a firm grasp on the topic because not only would they have to know the impact, but they would have to be able to take what they know and convey it through either a scenario or some other way. By forcing the student to simply think about the impact, they are thinking beyond just what the neuron, brain, or corpus callosum does, but by making them draw the impact in a scenario they are not just participating in higher level thinking but also applying the impact to a situation. By making a student apply the impact to a situation that they have to come up with, it is more likely that they will remember it better. As for the students who are trying to guess the topic that their teammate is drawing, they have to also have a handle on the information of neuroscience so that they can decipher what is being drawn and then how it applies to neuroscience. The purpose of this game is to force the students to make numerous connections between neuroscience and their own everyday life. In order for a student to learn neuroscience, they will likely look at the key terms and just try to learn and/or memorize them. They will likely not try to gain a deep understanding of the topics, but this may not be reflected in their grade on the test. The student may get an A or a B on the test without having a deep understanding of the knowledge. By using Pictionary, the student(s) will be forced to create connections that will help them to fully remember the information about neuroscience better. This learning strategy will not be effective without the use of other strategies because it will not provide the student a small background on any topic. This strategy is only useful to those who are prepared for higher level thinking and application of the topics presented in the neuroscience chapter.
While playing this game I realized that it is a lot harder than I first expected. I assumed that coming up with my own scenarios in which these can be applied would be a lot easier than it actually was. This game made me think deeper than I planned on but it proved to be highly successful. It was actually hard to draw the various topics in the chapter on the spur of the moment, but as I reflect back on the game I can think of some different ways. This is the point of the game. Even if it is not clicking in the students head at the moment he or she is trying to draw, if it forces him or her to reflect on the topics then it is still serving the original purpose. In this sense, the strategy is effective in making the student create a connection and applying the topic to his or her life. The learning strategy does have some flaws, which was to be expected after the first trial run. Some of the cards were a little confusing and more challenging to draw than others, but that is not a hard fix to make going forward in the future. Other than that, and some of the kids who did not know how to play the game of Pictionary, there were not too many flaws for this strategy. As stated before though, this game and strategy can only be used after a person has a grasp on the general idea of the topics.
Learning is not just being able to recall or remember facts and regurgitating facts, but it requires a person to be able to apply the facts they know to a situation. That is exactly what this game and this learning strategy fosters that exact same attitude and desired outcome. It makes people apply their knowledge, true learning. Not only do the students have to be able to remember what they were taught, but they also have to think about how they can draw that so that another person is able to figure out what it is. Students who are drawing are not allowed to speak so technically, the strategy does not use language, but it does use written language in the form of pictures. The strategy uses a different type of communication than the conventional verbal communication. This helps all the visual learners and prevents students from just being able to say the facts; they have to come up with their own way to present the information. For this reason, the learning strategy is very effective, not to mention fun and challenging. With the game being a different, fun, challenging, and competitive, it will surely spark the interest of a lot of students, and this will therefore spark learning as well.
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