Making Learning Fun - A Gaming Mindset

The latest video we’re keen to share with you is of Mark Rober speaking at TEDx Penn. It’s titled “The Super Mario Effect – Tricking Your Brain Into Learning More”, and we found the roughly 15 minute video appealing on a number of levels:

• Mark’s whole manner embodies his ethos of making learning fun
• His attitude of “life gamification” (leading to more learning) is particularly captivating
• His wacky inventions delight the child within us still
• Many of the nostalgic references in his talk conjured up happy memories for those of us who were actually children in the 1980s – including hours/days/months spent on gameboys trying to make it to the next level of Super Mario Land...

​Mark is an American engineer, inventor and YouTube star – his channel has 4 million subscribers currently (December 2018). His videos cover popular science, DIY gadgets and goofy but creative ideas (like liquid sand and gigantic waterpistols). A NASA engineer for nine years earlier in his career, Mark’s playful style entertains viewers into learning science, engineering and design. 

The trick to learning more, and having more success, is finding the right way to frame the learning process...what if you just framed the learning process in such a way that you didn’t concern yourself with failure? How much more successful could you be? How much more could you learn?”
MARK ROBER

Some nuggets from the video:

• Reframe the learning process
• Learn from, but don’t focus on, the failures e.g. view them as experiments
• Focus instead on the “cool end goal” for learning to come more naturally
• Eventually succeeding after repeated failures means that the success holds more value – like ultimately completing the final Super Mario challenge

Interestingly too, the basic coding challenge referred to in the video has had a positive impact. For example, one viewer described how she learnt from the challenge that “anyone could code” and she is now a programmer and designer “because of this ONE experiment”! 

This concept of life gamification is more than just ‘Have a positive attitude’ or ‘Never give up’ because those imply you’re having to endure against your true desire to quit. I feel that when you frame a challenge or learning process in the way I’m describing, you actually want to do it. It feels natural to ignore the failures and try again.”
MARK ROBER

Update (June 2021):

• Mark now has almost 19 million YouTube subscribers, and his channel continues to grow
• Interest in his programming challenge / car game continues to be strong, and curious readers can still find the coding puzzle here: http://puzzle.prenda.co/main
• All our posts on learning can be found here: https://www.protagion.com/stories/category/learning
• Please let us know if you're a protege looking to learn something new, and please comment below if you found this post helpful