It takes a while to learn a topic; it takes longer to remember what it was like to not know a topic.
As the semester winds down and the weather turns from chilly to just Cold and Dark, my friends and family and I will most certainly be grabbing tabletop games, new and old, and spending countless hours board gaming.
At no point am I more flummoxed as a teacher than when I’m explaining the rules of a board game to a newbie. What is innate and second nature to me is total gobbledygook for the novice. Moreover, I can see and hear the confusion in my audience more evidently when they’re sitting across the table from me (potentially with a refreshing beverage in tow).
I’ve played a fair amount of tabletop games. Gone are the days of simplistic, travel-around-the-board games like Sorry!. Today’s tabletop games are much more complex. My and my family’s and friends’ favorite is Wingspan (and its subsequent expansions); the recent hit is Viticulture (aided greatly by its Tuscany expansion). I’ve played these games enough that they feel easy to play. Truly after just a few playthroughs we’re able to grasp the game mechanics. Both games have game mechanics that are a little off kilter than simple turn-taking. In Wingspan, you take one of four actions, then carry out the subsequent actions based on the birds you have played. In Viticulture, you choose the order in which you play at the beginning of each round. You then place workers throughout the round who do stuff. They’re not terribly complicated…. But only after you’ve played it.
Before you play Wingspan the rules and mechanics seem incredibly complex. Yet after just one or two playthroughs the rules are easy to grasp. Like a lot of board games, the mechanics become understandable, only after you start playing it. And if you, as a newbie, are playing with veterans of the game you’re probably going to lose because you don’t know the nuances. In Wingspan, the first time you play you won’t know whether it’s more advantageous for your aviary to play a Ferruginous Hawk or a Western Tanager. It’s ok, and understandable, and even expected, that the first time you play you’re going to be fumbling in the dark. However, Wingspan is delightful enough that playing pretty birds and listening to their call with the Wingsong app, might provide sufficient enjoyment.
But then next time you play it, you’ll understand the mechanics and you can start focusing on building an aviary that nabs you a lot of points.
The most underrated skill of teaching math isn’t snazzy uses of new tools, or pedagogies like problem-based learning. It’s the ability to place ones’ self in the seat of the novice learner. A teacher needs the pedagogical intelligence to know when it’s time to go over the “rules” again and when it’s best (and how to) get students playing themselves.
The discipline of math can be forbidding and formidable, it’s crucial we, as teachers, can look at new unit of instruction the same way we look at the game mechanics of Parks for the first time (a game I’ll be trying this weekend for the first time). Or you could have Ben Wyatt try and explain the rules of Cones of Dunshire.
emergent math 