Dustin Staats

00:02 all right look Dustin Dustin stats very 00:05 happy to have you as our first guest on 00:07 the everyday enthusiast you're an 00:09 educator a board games enthusiast and a 00:11 podcast host I imagine right now during 00:13 the whole coronavirus crisis classrooms 00:16 are kind of different right now so how 00:18 is that how are you adapting to that 00:20 right now 00:20 well first off thank you for inviting me 00:23 on here for an interview with the tundra 00:26 I'm excited to see these interviews come 00:27 out and I'm honored to be guest first 00:31 bit yeah first guest 00:32 as far as teaching goes I am in a 00:36 support role this semester so a lot of 00:38 my role personally has been to help get 00:43 students to engage with our content we 00:46 started off with just getting them to 00:48 interact with teachers checking in and 00:49 now we're just working on getting them 00:51 caught up on their projects but as far 00:54 as like podcast community board game 00:56 with education and talking with other 00:57 teachers it's it's been a bit of a 01:01 struggle I think at first especially 01:03 because there's a lot of different 01:04 school districts different schools had 01:06 different ways for dealing with this and 01:09 for moving online some weren't doing 01:11 anything for like three weeks our school 01:14 we started pretty quickly like the first 01:16 week we were already kind of doing stuff 01:18 but we're set up to be a bit of a hybrid 01:21 we have a lot of our program on though 01:23 so you kind of were prepared for this 01:25 yeah well I would say prepared is just 01:27 they we do project-based learning so all 01:30 of their projects they do through an 01:32 online platform so it was it was pretty 01:35 easy to get set up in that way but one 01:40 thing that we've really been talking 01:41 about with the podcasts are with board 01:43 games is how we can use games to develop 01:46 culture through this time because a lot 01:49 of times well especially this time we're 01:52 losing contact with our students and our 01:53 students really arrived with that check 01:57 in that extra relationship with teachers 02:00 and we're really as a teacher you're 02:02 really losing that during this time so 02:04 thinking about ways to use games to kind 02:06 of maintain that class culture while 02:09 we're remote so it's kind of been a 02:11 learning experience for a lot of 02:12 teachers too including 02:13 self because a lot of the games that 02:15 I've used previously we're in the 02:17 classroom I like to use a lot of board 02:19 games so bringing those online have been 02:20 it's been fun but it's definitely been a 02:23 challenge to figure out what games work 02:24 and which ones don't 02:25 in a remote setting remind me what like 02:28 a grade of students do you interact with 02:30 usually like what grade the students you 02:32 can teaching right so I've I've worked 02:35 with as little as preschool to adult 02:38 education the majority of my teaching 02:42 has been in a university level or middle 02:44 school so this is my third year working 02:47 with middle school students as a part of 02:49 my teaching career so right now it's 02:53 middle-school students I'm working with 02:54 the sixth grade team to help support 02:56 some students who need that extra 02:57 encouragement extra accountability to 02:59 get their work done during this time 03:01 because we we don't we're not penalizing 03:05 Sue's for not doing it but we don't want 03:07 them to shut off and they will still 03:09 need to complete this work at some point 03:11 so it's really just trying to get them 03:13 to show up create a schedule created to 03:17 make themselves accountable for their 03:19 work as well well those are like the 03:22 most formative years and I imagine like 03:23 right now to have something like this 03:25 happen it's kind of crazy so you're 03:28 trying to like I said maintain that 03:30 culture and keep people you know 03:32 connected still you know while we're 03:33 digitally having to communicate so 03:36 that's crazy so but have you ever like 03:38 done anything like a digital classroom 03:39 before this like or is it just this 03:41 project-based learning kind of stuff or 03:44 me yes I've done some online teaching 03:47 through an IELTS program which is an 03:51 English certified certification exam so 03:53 I've developed some courses in that 03:54 regard so I personally have some 03:56 experience of online teaching but a lot 03:58 of teachers don't and I I'm it was 04:02 awesome to see some of my teachers in 04:04 our school develop some lessons and get 04:06 really creative with it because I think 04:09 I think students really see that too 04:11 they see teachers put in that effort 04:13 putting in that effort to bring their 04:16 lessons online and think of creative 04:17 ways to do it to you so I think a lot of 04:21 teachers are learning and it's I think 04:23 it's a good thing to kind of consider 04:25 what is working now 04:27 and what works really well now to 04:29 actually implement in future classrooms 04:31 when we're back in person because a lot 04:33 of teachers are finding out oh this 04:35 really is working online why am I not 04:37 doing this in my classroom already yeah 04:40 and so being a teacher was that 04:43 something that was like a childhood 04:45 dream of yours was there a teacher of 04:46 yours and inspired you to pursue this or 04:48 like a like how did you get into this um 04:51 so I guess maybe the school I'm at now I 04:55 was I worked there for years ago before 04:57 I was in Taiwan I was teaching 04:58 University in Taiwan and they asked a 05:00 question similar to that what teacher 05:02 got you into education and to be honest 05:05 I had never thought I would go into 05:07 education until I went teaching abroad 05:10 and I really loved teaching students and 05:13 seeing their progress and English 05:16 language education I really enjoyed too 05:17 but the teacher that really motivated me 05:20 was my university professor and she and 05:22 I had a lot of one-on-one conversations 05:25 and one of the questions she asked me is 05:27 would you be able to sit in a classroom 05:29 with university students and ask a 05:32 question and have everyone if you blank 05:34 stares are you gonna be able to do that 05:37 because that's what are the challenges 05:39 yeah so um yeah I think I'll endure I 05:44 went to South Korea when I graduated 05:46 college on a whim to teach English 05:47 language education and from there I've 05:49 learned that that's what I really 05:51 enjoyed doing teaching abroad that must 05:53 be a real culture clash like a you share 05:57 some of your experiences that he's at 05:58 Taiwan and South Korea did you teach 05:59 anywhere else yeah I taught in South 06:01 Korea Taiwan and mainland China as well 06:04 so my first year was in South Korea I 06:07 was part of a graduate program that was 06:09 us-based but we had to teach in China 06:12 for a year and then I spent three years 06:13 teaching in Taiwan so it's been really 06:18 awesome because I've learned a lot about 06:20 education and how if I learn the 06:26 differences between the countries and 06:28 kind of been able to mash them together 06:30 and create my own educational philosophy 06:32 which has been really cool up until the 06:36 last few months since I was working in 06:37 Taiwan at the Ministry of Education and 06:39 that really 06:40 Hasmukh taught me a lot as far as I know 06:43 educational policies developed in Taiwan 06:45 and that helped me now in my current 06:49 position to understand kind of well what 06:51 what can schools do here in the US and 06:53 what can they not do that maybe some 06:56 bureaucratic tape is in the way what 06:58 would you say is the biggest cultural 07:01 difference in classrooms 07:02 you know broad versus the United States 07:05 um well in my experience it would be 07:09 shyness I think yeah because especially 07:14 for language education that is something 07:17 that people when they are in a classroom 07:20 learning languages are afraid of making 07:21 mistakes and in my experience when I 07:25 learn a language I'm very open and I'm 07:27 just having fun with it but in Asian 07:32 cultures as a generalization a lot of 07:35 students are not super comfortable with 07:38 eating in front of the classroom and 07:40 speaking so that was one thing is how do 07:42 I encourage students to be comfortable 07:44 speaking and that's kind of where I 07:46 leaned into board games in game based 07:48 learning in the classroom - speaking of 07:50 that so gamification in the classroom 07:53 when was that like what was the first 07:55 time you've heard about this unique 07:57 approach to teaching ah the first time I 08:01 heard about it was maybe four or five 08:03 years after I was already doing it 08:08 you were already ahead of the curve here 08:09 well it more like I think a lot of 08:12 teachers are using game based learning 08:13 or gamification techniques and they're 08:15 not realizing that's the term for what 08:17 they're doing and that's looking back on 08:20 some of the things I did in the past I 08:22 realized oh wow I was applying 08:23 gamification here for classroom 08:25 management or oh I used this lesson that 08:28 I kind of designed as a game based 08:30 learning opportunity for language and 08:33 just maybe like three years ago is when 08:35 I realized this is a field I can help 08:38 expand and make for teachers aware of 08:40 and help them develop strategies and 08:42 techniques that work and kind of looking 08:43 at once that maybe don't and how to 08:45 reshape those and so that's also the 08:49 central focus of your podcast for 08:50 getting with education when you start 08:53 the podcast yeah the word game in that 08:55 education we interview teachers game 08:58 designers publishers and talk about how 08:59 we can leverage games for learning 09:01 initially we started at two years ago so 09:04 February 2 from this past February two 09:07 years from then and initially it was 09:10 board gaming with English so we created 09:13 a podcast for English language learners 09:15 specifically but we found out a lot of 09:18 other teachers were tuning in 09:19 and we saw this as an opportunity to 09:21 kind of expand into an overall 09:24 educational approach to game based 09:25 learning games and so is there a 09:29 particular success that you've seen like 09:31 that have you seen this evolve over the 09:33 past few years it seems like it's 09:34 getting more and more popular more 09:36 teachers are implementing it especially 09:37 probably right now yeah I think I mean I 09:42 might this might be biased answer I 09:44 think it's better more popular but I had 09:47 one thing I've really noticed that's 09:48 been awesome because it you have unique 09:51 people that was in the podcast so we've 09:52 tried to expand outside of the podcast 09:55 and grow online communities and that's 09:56 why I'm super excited about the tundra 09:58 and using that space as a way to grow 10:00 our community too because our Facebook 10:03 group is very active and very engaging 10:05 but I would say maybe like five to ten 10:09 percent of people on in that Facebook 10:10 group actually listen to the podcast 10:12 though trying to figure out how to 10:14 engage those community members has been 10:17 a lot of fun and also very eye-opening 10:21 and a great learning process for me to 10:24 you so yeah it's been it's been a 10:25 journey so far and so obviously board 10:29 games is also a lifelong passion of 10:31 yours or an enthusiast of board games is 10:34 there a particular game that sparked 10:36 this passion is there a childhood memory 10:38 you associated with this he can do like 10:39 that was the moment yeah I mean oh man 10:43 we played a lot of risk growing up we 10:45 would stay up till 4:00 or 5:00 in the 10:46 morning I played a lot of trading card 10:48 games like yugioh Pokemon Magic the 10:51 Gathering in my adult life I got into 10:55 board games again when we played 10:57 Dominion which is like a def builder 10:59 game kind of like Magic the Gathering or 11:00 pokemon but you don't have to go out and 11:02 collect cards the game comes with the 11:05 deck well then it comes with several 11:06 cards that you can build your own deck 11:08 through the plain process is it no it's 11:12 just a deck building game so for example 11:14 you might have a row of cards and you 11:15 can spend a certain amount of money to 11:17 purchase cards and you try to build your 11:19 deck by making it as efficient as 11:22 possible so you'll draw cards and then 11:24 you'll spend those cards to get new ones 11:26 and then you'll just cycle through your 11:27 deck to try to get the most victory 11:29 points to win 11:31 I remember back when we met at IndieCade 11:33 he told me I can't remember was your 11:35 mother your grandmother used to play 11:37 this game with her and she had to tell 11:38 you you can't cheat okay like she caught 11:40 you cheating like too many times what 11:43 was that game or was that risk was that 11:45 a game of risk where that happened we 11:47 had to get talked to less of me as it 11:49 actually Kings in the corner oh yeah 11:51 that was one of the earliest memories of 11:54 games is we play kings in the corner and 11:56 I think the rule is you you're supposed 11:58 to play your king down as soon as 12:00 possible and I realized that if I hold 12:02 it I kind of have an advantage and in 12:05 the game more easily but then my grandma 12:07 called me out and said that's cheating 12:09 you're not supposed to be doing that but 12:11 yeah I think that was that was a fun 12:13 experience for me to learn about how 12:15 in-game mechanics work and how you can 12:18 manipulate those as well and that's kind 12:20 of the whole genesis of gamification of 12:23 classroom is you're taking the mechanics 12:25 and you're applying them to the 12:26 classroom and just like it's not like 12:29 you know students are sitting around 12:30 playing a game you're teaching a lesson 12:32 and you're using just the mechanics and 12:34 but you're applying them to history or 12:36 math or whatever is there a particular 12:39 subject where you see a lot of success 12:40 like math students history students I 12:43 would imagine history might be the 12:44 easiest one 12:45 you could adapt to is there a particular 12:47 subject yeah so uh yeah I think um I 12:51 would say history is the most theirs are 12:53 the most abundant board games in that 12:55 category if you look behind I have a 12:57 couple there's evolution recently I 12:59 developed a lesson plan for that in the 13:02 game the lesson plan is centered around 13:04 cause and effect in how ecosystems 13:06 change based on what's happening in the 13:09 ecosystem so students look at how the 13:11 game develops and in the game you have 13:13 and when there's a lot of food you'll 13:16 notice all the players create more 13:18 animals and more species grow but when 13:20 the food goes down or some player 13:23 creates a carnivore animal you realize 13:26 this species go down so it's looking at 13:27 cause and effect that's kind of a middle 13:29 school lesson plan so not really like 13:31 the game is not a teaching tool it's 13:35 more what supports do you create around 13:37 the game to use it in your class to 13:40 provide something so your students meet 13:42 that learning outcome you set for them 13:44 exactly um and so I'm seeing behind me 13:47 these games you know when I think of 13:49 orchids I just think of monopoly and all 13:50 the ones that you know the way person it 13:52 comes to their mind are these 13:54 independent like Kickstarter games like 13:56 where did you like discover these games 13:59 so for me personally a lot because I got 14:03 into the board game Hobby later than 14:05 when it started really blowing up on 14:07 Kickstarter so I think like eleven 14:09 evolution might have been a kickstart 14:11 I'm not sure but I just bought it just 14:13 in a friendly local game store and 14:16 because I know it's it's a good game 14:19 that came out several years ago and 14:20 people still talk about and still love 14:21 it 14:22 but yeah I think a lot of board game 14:24 publishers do use Kickstarter because 14:26 that's where the audience is but not all 14:29 there's are some games that go the 14:31 traditional distribution route that 14:33 those games end up at friendly local 14:35 game stores or Target or Barnes and 14:37 Noble but yeah I think it's there's so 14:42 many more games out there every year now 14:44 - so it's thousands that are published 14:46 each year so have you ever considered 14:49 developing a game yourself a little bit 14:52 I've I've developed a few games for my 14:55 classrooms and I've done some things for 14:57 fun I developed a gamification toolkit 15:00 for class two we launched it over 15:03 Christmas and new and Thanksgiving which 15:05 was a bad business decision on our part 15:09 because I didn't realize teachers are 15:11 not looking for new materials at that 15:12 time so we might look back into that in 15:15 the summer but yeah I mean that's one 15:18 thing that I really enjoy about games - 15:20 and game based learning is looking at 15:21 just the game mechanics and what you can 15:23 take to apply it to learning and so do 15:29 you have a relationship with any 15:30 developers or is that something like 15:32 that you've ever collaborated with 15:34 developers while you're thinking of how 15:36 to apply these to the classroom or is it 15:38 just purely kind of your own your own 15:40 thing oh well with evolution the game I 15:44 mentioned earlier I've worked with them 15:45 to develop a lesson plan and also reach 15:47 out to teachers and educators how they 15:49 created a digital based education 15:52 edition so it makes it more accessible 15:54 for teachers to bring their classroom 15:56 you 15:57 so I mean I'm always open to working 15:59 with board game companies or publishers 16:01 as far as design goes I've haven't 16:05 really done anything outside play 16:07 testing games for other designers or 16:09 publishers alright so just to wrap 16:13 things up what do you see for the future 16:15 of gamification in the classroom I mean 16:17 obviously it's on the rise but what do 16:19 you see these you need changes or 16:20 anything on the horizon for it well I 16:23 think one thing that is echoed a lot 16:26 with myself and other guests and when we 16:28 talk about this game based learning 16:29 gamification is a tool for our educators 16:32 toolbelt it's not the answer for 16:34 everything but it's something you can do 16:36 maybe once a year or you can develop 16:39 different parts of your classroom or 16:41 your class culture that maybe can use 16:44 some sort of enhancement and you can use 16:46 games and see what works and what 16:47 doesn't work and I think that hopefully 16:51 more teachers are willing to try it out 16:53 because that is the toughest thing I 16:57 think as teachers were we need to be 16:59 willing to make mistakes we kind of 17:02 teach that to our students the growth 17:03 mindset where it's okay to fail it's 17:05 okay to make a mistake and a friend of 17:07 mine think that you know Jonathan Cassie 17:10 he talks about just take a swing and 17:13 your note and your students are gonna 17:14 notice that you're at least taking a 17:15 swing for them and you're maybe you're 17:16 swinging and you're missing but maybe 17:18 you're swinging you know homerun but 17:20 your note your students are gonna notice 17:22 those swings that you're taking you'll 17:24 never know if you don't try alright 17:25 awesome thank you so much Justin well 17:28 let's plug your your podcast for getting 17:29 with education what date does usually 17:31 drop we release episodes every Monday 17:33 we're getting into video content 17:36 hopefully soon you can go to board game 17:38 with education comm and sign up for our 17:41 newsletter so you want any updates or 17:43 you can find us on social media you put 17:46 all the links in the info for this 17:47 episode all right awesome well thank you 17:49 thank you so much yeah thank you and so 17:51 it's great a great first episode thank 17:54 you that's the end of our pilot all 17:55 right awesome thank you gust and thank 17:58 you so much thank you all right take 17:59 care I'll reach out later on a bit yeah 18:01 okay