Teaching Game Design

I am so excited... Denise Stalnaker has shared another post with me and I am sharing it with you....

There are some days that I feel like I don’t know anything and other days when I feel that I might just be getting ahead. This feeling was one of the main obstacles that I had to face when I started teaching business technology classes. When I had taught other classes I knew the content or at least 80-90percent of it. However, I am lucky if I know 20-30% of the features of the software that I teach. At first I felt stressed about it but now I have learned to let the students do the leading. If they know more than me I put them to work helping other students, teaching me or doing special projects. There are days when it still bothers me that I don’t know certain information but generally that feeling goes away once I see the work of the students.

I also try to talk to students about technology advances. At least 5 years ago a few of my students told me I needed to get Flash. My principal allowed me to purchase a copy and I tried to use it. I was lost so about two weeks later two of my students in web page design were ahead so I gave it to them to learn. Approximately 20 minutes later they were showing me how to do the basics.

As I teach game design there are days when I cannot help the students but I have learned that figuring things out together or assigning another student to help work just as well. I really hope this is 21st Century learning because I know I am learning “tons” and hopefully preventing Alzheimer’s in the process.