[Reflect] Make connections: Brain training games.

The N-back game is only one of many kinds of so-called brain training games that test your memory, reflexes, concentration, and problem-solving skills. In What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning, sociolinguist James Paul Gee argues that video games provide a hands-on, customized learning environment in which players develop skills and teach themselves how to be more adept, independent learners. Think about your experience playing video games or other games (Risk, poker), and consider whether they helped you develop your memory or thinking abilities. Your instructor may ask you to post your thoughts on a class discussion board or to discuss them with other students in class. Use these questions to get started:

• Can you think of at least one way in which a game you played has helped you, in Jaeggi’s words, develop “the capacity to solve novel problems, to learn, to reason, to see connections” (par. 4)?
• How important do you think “working” memory (“the capacity to manipulate the information you’re holding in your head—to add or subtract...numbers, place them in reverse order or sort them from high to low” [par. 6]) is in mastering the brain training games with which you are familiar?
• What other abilities seem important—such as creativity, logical reasoning, or sustained attention?