Students play it, teachers perpetuate it, parents condone it, principals endorse it, and governments legislate it. The "game of school" is that familiar scenario where students' natural curiosity and desire to learn are replaced with a frantic rush (or a compliant shrug) to do the work, please the teacher, and get the grades. This game is easy to master, but exerts a high price. Can we afford to pay the price in wasted time and idle minds? In this compelling book, Robert L. Fried shows how we can change the rules of the game, reclaim and refocus the learning experience, and ultimately bring joy back into the classroom. The Game of School is filled with interviews and stories of teachers and students who are struggling to put the game of school behind them and engage in authentic learning. We experience the excitement of the first day of first grade; listen to urban teens discuss Shakespeare's Othello; and meet a college student who is beginning to question her long disengagement with learning. We are introduced to seven types of learners—from "go-getters" to "pluggers" to "rebels"—and find out how the game shapes their relationship to schooling and life. The Game of School offers workable solutions that take into account the reality of a culture consumed with testing, accountability, and the race for college. Fried redefines our common ideas of discipline, curriculum, instruction, grading, motivation, and family involvement in ways that enhance true learning and diminish the game's stranglehold on our curiosity and will. He argues that classrooms are more easily "managed" in a climate of mutual respect, and students are eager for "instruction" when it is challenging and engaging. His "Joy and Misery Index" serves to remind teachers of what really matters most in the classroom. Thoughtful and inspiring, The Game of School offers suggestions and ideas for teachers, parents, and students who want to free themselves from the ever-tightening grip of a game in which even winners end up losing.

Integrate game-based learning for 21st Century skills success! This straightforward, easy-to-follow guide from experts Schaaf and Mohan helps you leverage technology students love best – digital video games. With step-by-step strategies, you’ll easily find, evaluate, and integrate gaming into your existing lesson plans or completely redesign your classroom. Teachers learn to use well-designed game elements to: Promote meaningful student buy-in Create student-centered, collaborative learning spaces Teach and assess 21st Century Fluencies aligned to Common Core State Standards Address multiple intelligences using research-based strategies Includes a detailed implementation outline. Create engaged, adventure-filled learning with this resourceful guide!

Surviving Game School speaks about what to expect in a top game design or game development college program, and what to expect once students get out. Making games is not at all the same as playing games. Uncommonly blunt, the book reveals the rigors – and the joys – of working in this industry. Along the way the book touches on themes of time management, creativity, teamwork, and burnout. The authors explore the impact working in the game industry can have on personal relationships and family life. The book closes with advice about life’s goals and building and keeping a sensible balance between work and everything else.

WHY PLAY THE HIGH STAKES GAME OF SCHOOL? "In this must-read book, Robert Fried shows us that playing the game of school day after day is an intolerable waste of time, and while we are told it will lead to a decent paying job, it actually stupefies us for life's challenges—including being a decent citizen. He shows why we simply cannot keep doing this to our intellectually feisty youngsters, or to their teachers. Fried has it right in theory and detail, and he shows us, in his lively, poignant, often funny stories from the field, how teachers, parents, and, yes, kids, too, can begin to change this dreadful and unnecessary game." —DEBORAH MEIER, founding principal and director, New Ventures, Mission Hill School "This critically important book plumbs the depths of productive vs. unproductive learning and finds a seemingly normal, yet insidious, 'game' at its core. Our schools' failure to engage young minds is explained through vivid portraits of teachers who buck the trend. Fried is not a nihilist who sees only the dark side. Far from it. He has the courage to describe the Game of School such that readers can accept the metaphor as a tool without which educational reform will continue to be ineffectual." —SEYMOUR B. SARASON, professor of psychology emeritus, Yale University and author of And What Do You Mean by Learning?

"This book is lewd, rude and superb! Frank and Stein have written the first guide to grad school from a student's point of view; and the result is an irreverent, humorous and USEFUL book of advice. These foul-mouthed sages will help you get through a master's or doctoral program more quickly, with fewer blunders and less angst. I plan to recommend this book to all the graduate students I coach and teach." -Mary McKinney, Ph.D. Clinical Psychologist and Dissertation Coach http://www.successfulacademic.com Yes, sports fans!, er, grad school fans Bad boys Fred and Karl are back with an updated version of their best selling self-help guide for grad students. This New and/or Improved Version is stocked with additional content, more lame attempts at humor, and a lower price (Karl threatened to moon the publisher unless his demands were met). Written with the attitude of a couple ill-mannered schoolboys who exhibit the insight and genius of the Ph.D.'s who wrote it, Playing the Game simplifies even the most complex aspects of grad school. Authors Frank and Stein have broken down Playing The Game into three hilarious and straightforward sections: Getting In, Getting Through, and Getting the Hell Out. In whatever stage of graduate school you find yourself, rest assured that you will never again grumble, "If only I had known! If only someone had explained this @%#! to me sooner!" Playing the Game simplifies the entire graduate school experience while imparting comically relevant stories and translating complicated graduate school jargon. This self-help guide helps grad students to comprehensively navigate their graduate school journey from application to matriculation. Unlike most of the material you'll be reading in grad school, Playing the Game is actually intelligible. www.playing-the-game.com

Principles for designing educational games that integrate content and play and create learning experiences connecting to many areas of learners' lives. Too often educational videogames are narrowly focused on specific learning outcomes dictated by school curricula and fail to engage young learners. This book suggests another approach, offering a guide to designing games that integrates content and play and creates learning experiences that connect to many areas of learners' lives. These games are not gamified workbooks but are embedded in a long-form experience of exploration, discovery, and collaboration that takes into consideration the learning environment. Resonant Games describes twenty essential principles for designing games that offer this kind of deeper learning experience, presenting them in connection with five games or collections of games developed at MIT's educational game research lab, the Education Arcade. Each of the games—which range from Vanished, an alternate reality game for middle schoolers promoting STEM careers, to Ubiquitous Bio, a series of casual mobile games for high school biology students—has a different story, but all spring from these fundamental assumptions: honor the whole learner, as a full human being, not an empty vessel awaiting a fill-up; honor the sociality of learning and play; honor a deep connection between the content and the game; and honor the learning context—most often the public school classroom, but also beyond the classroom.

The book will explore the use of games-based learning and gamification in school libraries. It illustrates how game play can be developed by school librarians through blended theory and practice, exemplified by case studies taken from a variety of international contexts.