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Educational games to train middle schoolers' attention, empathy by ferujkll sdff
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Educational games to train middle schoolers' attention, empathy |
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Business,Business News,Business Opportunities
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With a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, theUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison professor is now answering his owncall. With Kurt Squire, an associate professor in the School ofEducation and director of the Games Learning Society Initiative,Davidson received a $1.39 million grant this spring to design andrigorously test two educational games to help eighth gradersdevelop beneficial social and emotional skills -- empathy,cooperation, mental focus, and self-regulation. "By the time they reach the eighth grade, virtually everymiddle-class child in the Western world is playing smartphone apps,video games, computer games," says Davidson, the William Jamesand Vilas Research Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry atUW-Madison. "Our hope is that we can use some of that time forconstructive purposes and take advantage of the natural inclinationof children of that age to want to spend time with this kind oftechnology." The project grew from the intersection of Davidson's research onthe brain bases of emotion, Squire's expertise in educational gamedesign, and the Gates Foundation's interest in preparing U.S.students for college readiness-possessing the skills and knowledgeto go on to post-secondary education without the need forremediation. "Skills of mindfulness and kindness are very important forcollege readiness," Davidson explains.
"Mindfulness,because it cultivates the capacity to regulate attention, which isthe building block for all kinds of learning; and kindness, becausethe ability to cooperate is important for everything that has to dowith success in life, team-building, leadership, and soforth." He adds that social, emotional, and interpersonal factors influencehow students use and apply their cognitive abilities. Building on research from the Center for Investigating HealthyMinds at UW-Madison's Waisman Center, the initial stage of theproject will focus on designing prototypes of two games. The firstgame will focus on improving attention and mental focus, likelythrough breath awareness. "Breathing has two important characteristics.
One is that it'svery boring, so if you're able to attend to that, you can attend tomost other things," Davidson says. "The second is thatwe're always breathing as long as we're alive, and so it's aninternal cue that we can learn to come back to. This is something achild can carry with him or her all the time." The second game will focus on social behaviors such as kindness,compassion, and altruism. One approach may be to help studentsdetect and interpret emotions in others by reading non-verbal cuessuch as facial expressions, tone of voice, and body posture.
"We'll use insights gleaned from our neuroscience research todesign the games and will look at changes in the brain during theperformance of these games to see how the brain is actuallyaffected by them," says Davidson. "Direct feedback frommonitoring the brain while students are playing the games will helpus iteratively adjust the game design as this work goesforward." Their analyses will include neural imaging and behavioral testingbefore, during, and after students play the games, as well aslooking at general academic performance. The results will help the researchers determine how the gamesimpact students and whether educational games are a useful mediumfor teaching these behaviors and skills, as well as evaluatewhether certain groups of kids benefit more than others. "Our hope is that we can begin to address these questions withthe use of digital games in a way that can be very easily scaledand, if we are successful, to potentially reach an extraordinarilylarge number of youth," says Davidson. I am an expert from Mouse, usually analyzes all kind of industries situation, such as drapery sheer fabric , merino wool sweater.
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