Friendly Fire
Imagine this…you are walking through the Spark Studio and you notice two learners with eyes intensely fixed on their work. They barely blink as you see them move tiles back and forth with great speed and intentionality. It feels like a race and you can feel the intensity of challenge as you hear click click “Ugh” click click “Yes!” The sound of their slightly heavy breathing but mostly silence is impressive. All seems like an incredible Olympic race of the mind. What is happening?
Over the last few weeks we’ve been noticing many learners but specifically two fellow travelers create Core Skill games on their own. No Guide asked or directed a game, this challenge came from the learners. They each wanted to achieve and what better way to work towards your goals than with a friend?
After the competition of the Insta-Learn boards (Math & Language) I had a chat with these two friends about their process and they had a lot to share.
Me: “It looks like you are playing a game with the Insta-Learn boards, can you explain to me what you are doing?”
Learner 1: “Well, we wanted to race to see who can get the most tiles but we wanted a challenge so even though the boards are different and have sometimes hard, sometimes easy tiles, the colors have different points.”
Learner 2: “I like to do the yellow tiles first because they’re easier but they count for less points so then I have to do the pink. It takes more time but it’s worth it cause they’re harder.”
Me: “Wow! So you have a whole point system. Do you play this game with any other material?”
Learner 1: “Oh yeah, we do it with the Bob books and the green [language] cabinet. Everything has points, one Bob book kinda takes 2 minutes, we sometimes have to change the points when it’s a harder level.”
Me: “What inspired you to create these games to achieve your Core Skills goals?”
Learner 1: “It’s just like playing soccer and in soccer we both want to be first so we just decided to do it with our work.”
This friendly fire of competition has been incredible to witness! Not only did these learners create a whole system of goal setting on their own but they are holding one another accountable and flying through their academic levels! A few months ago these freshly turned 7 year olds were reading simple three letter words and now because of their game system they catapulted to the end of our complex language system, words that don’t follow the rules.
At Acton, this peer motivation is why our model works. Peer motivation is powerful and can occur between learners that are younger and older. This soccer inspired game has now inspired other learners in the studio to compete and the competition isn’t always between two 7 year olds. In our multi-age learning environment a 4 year old can work with a 6 year old and sometimes that 4 year can out perform. Like we always say to learners, it isn’t how old you are it is what you know and what you do. We all have something to learn and we all have something to share as we learn to learn, learn to do, and learn to be! Learning is FUN and it’s more fun with a friend!