Serious Design for Serious Play

Lloyd P. Rieber Michael J. Matzko


In this article the authors present their approach to designing a physical science lesson according to specifications that were outlined to them in a special issue. They also would go onto discuss their learning and design philosophy and how they work and make their decisions.
This article asks the age-old question, how to make the material fun/exciting to keep the students focused? Many teacher’s manuals come with somewhat of a time line of how the class should be moving, but I don’t agree, each student is their own person and learn at their own pace, therefore you cannot rush them through or take it to slow. Each teacher must figure out there own way, there own niche in the classroom. I did like the fact that the authors tried to allow for some tweaking of the lesson plan and some alterations while in class. I thought it was great that the authors used the phrase “thinking outside the box,” if more teachers think this way then our students would stay motivated and be excited in the classroom.
The authors use the term “serious play” as to what I perceive to be a learning style. The authors say that, “serious play is purposeful, or goal oriented, with the person able to modify goals as desired or needed. Most important, the individual views the experience of serious play as satisfying and rewarding in and of itself and considers the play experience as important as any outcomes that are produced as a result of it.” I like this and totally agree with this, students should be goal oriented but should not be scared of altering or changing those goals. I agreed with this article, the authors worked on figuring out how to make students learning better, while challenging the students to think outside the box, at the same time while having the teachers think outside the box. I think that the authors are trying to do away with conformity and let people know that doing things your own way can work, you must be fired up as a teacher in order to get your students fired up to be in your classroom.

Multiple Intelligences and Learning Styles By Emily Giles, Sarah Pitre, & Sara Womack

This article was very interesting, it suggests that there are many different types of intellegence/ways of learning out there and that people must be open minded to them. I agree totally with this, I do believe, and history will prove that there are people in the world that learn and excell in many different ways. This article list the 8 different intellegences and what makes them up, and also listed some historical/famous people over the history of the U.S. that could be put under each intellegence. 1) Verbal/Linguistic means that you have the ability to understand and manipulate words.(T.S. Elliot, Maya Angelou, and Martin Luther King Jr) 2)Logical/Mathematical refers to someones ability to do things with data.(Albert Einstein, Niehls Bohr, and John Dewey) 3)Visual/Spatial refers to your ability to form and manipulate and mental maodel of something.(Pablo Picasso, Bobby Fischer, and Georgia O'Keefe)
4)Bodily/Kinesthetic are people who process info through the sensations they feel in their bodies.(Michael Jordan, Martina Navratilova, and Jim Carrey) 5)Naturalistic is someone who finds it easy to recognize and classify plants, animals, and minerals.(Charles Darwin and John Muir) 6)Musical Intellegence is someone who has the ability to understand, create, and interpet musical pitches.(Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Louis Armstrong) 7)Interpersonal refers to the ability to respond to moods, emothions, and motivation.(Gandhi, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton) 8)Intrapersonal refers the ability to know one's self.(Jean Paul Satre and Frederick Douglas)
I agree with all the authors had to say, for one I personally do believe that everyone has their own nitch in life and do things the way they do things for reasons that are way beyond us. I also think that their points are validated by the examples of different people they listed for each intellegence.
In conclusion as someone who is looking tobecome a teacher I think it is important that we all realize that everyone has their own talent/intellegence and it is up to parents, teachers, friends and family to work with the intellegence of each person.