Compare football and mathematics. One of them leads us to sprinting joyfully under the sun and rain. The other has us hunched over a table, scribbling on paper.

Both are domains that demand a great amount of skill and knowledge to master. Why the difference between them?

David Perkins brings us on this treatment on how to bring playing the whole game into the academic classroom, in a bid to inject the same joy.

Why play the whole game?

From the moment children step onto the field, the objective of a game of football is unclear: kick the ball into the opponent's goal, and prevent the opposing team from doing so.

When playing the whole game, we immediately start to see the intended objective. This insight is done without the need for an instructor, and is accompanied with spotting the relationships between different parts of the game.

Understanding of these relationships motivates us to find out more about the game: driving our desire to learn more.

Learning how to make use of this could be the most important investment we can make: to learn to thrive in the long game of life.

Why doesn't playing the whole game work all the time?

Some of us have played soccer, chess, tennis or other sports since young, but not many of us win Wimbleton or attain Grandmaster status. Playing the whole game isn't enough to attain mastery on its own; there are other learning principles in play that are being neglected.

Having free reign isn't useful for noobs.

How do we enhance the learning experience beyond just playing the whole game?

1 - Transfer of learning

We train and drill extensively on what Perkins call the 'home ground'; somewhere we are comfortable and intimately familiar with. We need to apply the same skills in other environments, to make them work for us in any setting.

There are 2 ways to build transfer of learning:

Reflection to derive high-level principles
Experiencing a large number of examples to discover the subtle nuances organically.

2 - Identifying the hidden principles

When watching a game, studying a journal, reading a biography, the processes behind the 'game' isn't obvious. We don't see the misadventures, the wrong hypotheses, the fruitless detours. But some of them have been key to the victory.

3 - Retaining the agency

The players need to believe in their agency in crafting their own learning path. This can be a matter of resilience: maintaining the intensity of practice in the face of a plateau. This can be a matter of meta-cognition: finding their strengths and playing the game to suit their immutable characteristics.

It is a matter of taking charge of one's learning, and not accepting stagnancy.

What is the role of the instructor?

Even though the motivated ones can go through this learning journey on their own, their process will be accelerated with the right mentor.

To succinctly describe the role of the instructor, it is to choose, to motivate and to extend the learning of our students.

To choose what is relevant and inspiring for the learners. What is practical about the idea? What about the concept does not make sense, or is shocking?
To motivate by controlling the pacing in the classrooms, providing engagement at all times. The end goal is to "keep the learners playing".
To extend, by training learners to deal with the hard parts.
Only through deliberately attempting to understand and replicate past successes, then comes improved performance.
Acknowledge the monster under the bed by asking "What makes this hard?" and trying to deconstruct the answer.

If the whole game is unsuitable for the learning to appreciate, the instructor can create value in making the game accessible to the learner.

How can we adapt the game of students of different needs? 4-year olds will not be able to play on a soccer field, but perhaps lighter balls and smaller spaces can be used. Tapping on the concept of the zone of proximal development (link), how can we change the difficulty to a level, where learners are challenged yet motivated?

What should an instructor NOT do:

Other than a todo list, perhaps it is valuable to consider a To-Not-Do list. Move the learning away from the following:

Regurgitation of facts. No number of humans can outperform Google or any other search in the breadth of the search and the responsiveness.
Endlessly storing information: Storage without context or intention of application can be achieved with cheap thumb drives, hard disks and cloud storage. The students of tomorrow need (link to range)
The ability to churn numbers through algorithms and formulae: Such tasks can easily be automated with a well-written script.

This is going to be hard.

Even after writing these points, it still needs to be acknowledged: Making learning whole is hard. We are trying to simulate life itself, and on top of that, calibrate the difficulty based on a comprehensive evaluation of the learner.

Perhaps the most important lesson is this: There is never an end to making a game worth playing, because there is always something to be improved.

Interesting quotes

"I can hardly think of anything more worth learning than learning to learn. It’s like money in the bank at compound interest."
"Ask: What would the topic be like if it were not just routine, if it required thinking with what you know and pushing that further? Ask: If there were some problem finding involved, where would it figure?"
"One of the jobs of creative teaching and learning is to put the intended game within reach, to provide threshold experiences with it."
"Our most important choice is what we try to teach"
"..understanding is not just an attainment but also a motivator. We are fundamentally more engaged when we understand and more enthralled when we find ourselves building understanding."