Keynote speakers promote creativity
Published: January 1, 2014
The General Sessions at the 2013 Annual Education Conference and Trade Show brought together all conference-goers to collectively experience inspiration and enlightenment on a large scale. Jane McGonigal applied her Ph.D. research on the neuroscience of gaming to the benefits games can offer for student engagement; international education expert Yong Zhao advocated a greater focus on the individual to unlock each student’s potential.
“We will take video games seriously as a platform for inventing the future of education,” McGonigal said at the outset of her talk. Pointing to studies showing “the longer you stay enrolled in school, the less engaged you become,” she showed a colorful slide depicting multiple areas of the brain literally lighting up when people play. Tapping that engagement, she said could produce an “epic win” for schools and students.
Zhao’s was a complementary message advocating individuality and creativity. The doctor of education discounted the importance of international comparisons of student achievement. “America never was good” in those rankings, “but miraculously, we are still here,” he said, attributing the United States’ poor performance to its commitment to universal education. “We allow everybody a chance, we do not preselect.”
He warned that current education trends are turning away from that principle. “Look hard at every child, not at what they cannot do but at what they can do,” Zhao advised.
CSBA members can view all three General Sessions (including the State of the State—see related story) on CSBA’s website through January; just log on to My CSBA at www.csba.org/mycsba.