Tag Archives: communities

Gamers have functioning online communities… Higher education should too!

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The gamers’ natural habitat today is online. Games are played online, some games only exist there, and discussion groups are active. No wonder connected learning has taken an interest in gamers. My interest in gamers, online communities, and exposure to Starcraft as a spectator, led me to the report on Connected Learning in Starcraft II Community by Yong Ming Kow, Timothy Young, and Katie Salen Tekinbas published in April of 2014. This is an excellent read outlining the community advantages that I hope the higher education to adopt.

www.watchtheguild.com

The cast of the Guild with Felicia Day in front. www.watchtheguild.com

The culture of making content is strong in the gaming communities. For example Felicia Day’s Web series “The Guild” was created based on her own experiences with World of Warcraft (massively multiplayer online role-playing game), and published on-line. Higher education also should foster this crafting and remixing of content. It is already done especially in engineering (The Ware Lab at Virginia Tech for example). The spirit of making could improve overall experience of online classes and make them an excellent option also for students who have difficulties in staying interested in only reading materials and theoretical topics.

Starcraft II screen capture (joystiq.com)

Starcraft II screen capture (joystiq.com)

Starcraft II community is an excellent example of a great on-line presence. I agree with Timothy Young that it caters to a wide variety of gamers from n00b to professional, and does not leave the spectators cold either. There are subgroups and activities for everyone interested. The inclusive nature of the community makes it an excellent example for online education. The accessibility of internet can break down some of the barriers we still have between teachers or advanced students, and the people just starting their trek on higher education path.

Shaun Clark (Apollo) and Sean Plott (Day[9]) (www.teamliquid.net)

Sean Plott (aka. Day[9]) is a notable member of the North American Starcraft II community, a former pro-gamer, current commentator, game designer, and entrepreneur. His dedication to the community is inspirational for any educator. Producing You Tube videos weekly to dissect the game play of the professionals and offering advice to improve your game play, shows his commitment to the game and the community. And this reminds me always that even online communities consist of people, not computers.

HuskyStarcraft (shop.maker.tv)

HuskyStarcraft (shop.maker.tv)

djWHEAT (www.teamliquid.net)

djWHEAT (www.teamliquid.net)

Other notable people in the community include Marcus Graham (djWHEAT) and Mike Lamond (Husky Starcraft). Their willingness to share their life stories in JP McDaniel’s Real Talk underlines the openness of the whole community. Higher education already has these passionate and dedicated people. I think we just need them to show it more visibly to all students. And what would be a better platform for this than online presence?

Higher education in all fields should already be moving towards the culture of making and creating. Getting the educators to build online communities for learning will make higher education more personal to students of 21st century. We don’t necessarily have a detailed focus point like Starcraft II -game to build upon. Instead we aim to get better at life in general.

 

Experts dehumanized – even on brain level!

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Parker Palmer (2007) calls for humanity in higher education. He sees today’s professional education stripped of feelings and concentrated on skills and techniques. He is right in this on many levels. Further proof is offered by a research done on medical students, comparing their  balanced emotional empathy scale scores (BBES) through medical school using a survey. This survey was used as a measure of vicarious empathy, or sympathy, of the students.

Measurement of BEES in medical students at different states of career. (Newton et al. 2008)

Figure 1. Measurement of BEES in medical students at different states of career. Higher score refers to higher level of sympathy. M1= freshmen, M2= sophomore, M3= junior, M4= senior. Core= internal medicine, family medicine, pediatrics, gynecology, psychiatry. Non-Core= surgery, pathology, radiology etc. Number of students surveyed was 419.  (Newton et al. 2008)

Figure 1 above shows the results of Newton’s study. For both sexes in all disciplines of medicine the emotional empathy scores decreased as the students advanced in medical school curriculum. The decline was lower in women compared to men with lowest decrease in empathy scores (13%) for women in core disciplines like internal medicine or pediatrics. Largest drop in empathy scores (38%) was seen in men at non-core disciplines like surgery or pathology (Newton et al. 2008). This decrease of empathy could be connected to Dr. Parker Palmer’s perceived lack of humanity in professionals.

More interestingly these empathy responses are different in all physicians on brain chemistry level compared to non-physicians. This was shown in a study where physicians and control group watched videos of needles and q-tips being stuck on hands. Their brain activity was measured with functional MRI, and their perception of pain intensity and unpleasantness in the videos was recorded via questionnaire (Cheng et al. 2007).

Figure 2. below shows how physicians did not have the same reaction to pain. The brain areas activating were different and the intensity of activity in those areas was lower compared to control group. In addition the physicians perceived the pain to be less intense and less unpleasant than control group (Cheng et al. 2007).

A) Control brain and physician's brain activate different areas when viewing needles being put in other peoples hands. B) Pain intensity and unpleasantness are scored lower by physicians compared to controls. C) The intensity of neural signals in different parts of brain are stronger in controls compared to physicians. Q-tip touching instead of needle was used as a control measure to make sure the measurement method was valid. No significant changes were seen between controls and physicians in terms of pain perception for q-tip touching. (Cheng et al. 2007)

A) Control brain and physician’s brain activate different areas when viewing needles being put in other peoples hands. B) Pain intensity and unpleasantness are scored lower by physicians compared to controls. C) The intensity of neural signals in different parts of brain are stronger in controls compared to physicians. Q-tip touching instead of needle was used as a control measure to make sure the measurement method was valid. No significant changes were seen between controls and physicians in terms of pain perception for q-tip touching. (Cheng et al. 2007)

If these kinds of lowered empathy responses are seen in physicians starting already in medical school, the education must at least partially be the cause of it. It could be a way to protect one’s psyche from overloading when seeing suffering every day in hospital environment. It could also be just plain numbing effect. The students get simply used to seeing the pain, and pain loses it’s intensity in their minds. I would be interested to see if the pain perception of physicians is same as the control groups, when they themselves are poked with needles…

To fix this lack of empathy, we need to change the way the students learn, or at least constantly remind them that pain is real and devastating to people experiencing it. This humanization of professionals could take different forms in their studies varying from thoughtful problem based learning assignments to mentoring sessions. The way we teach has an impact on how students brain chemistry works, and we should be aware of this huge responsibility.

References:

  • Cheng, Y., Lin, C.-P., Liu, H.-L., Hsu, Y.-Y., Lim, K.-E., Hung, D., & Decety, J. (2007). Expertise Modulates the Perception of Pain in Others. Current Biology, 17(19), 1708-1713. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2007.09.020
  • Newton, B. W., Barber, L., Clardy, J., Cleveland, E., & O’Sullivan, P. (2008). Is There Hardening of the Heart During Medical School? Academic Medicine, 83(3), 244-249 210.1097/ACM.1090b1013e3181637837.
  • Palmer, P. J. (2007) A New Professional: The Aims of Education Revisited, Change, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. (http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/change/sub.asp?key=98&subkey=2455, when accessed. Now no longer there.)