7. Well-Order Problems. Research has shown that when learners are left free to roam
in a complex problem space—as they sometimes are in permissive “hands on”
environments—they tend to hit on creative solutions to complex problems, but solutions
that don’t lead to good hypotheses about how to solve later, even easier problems (Elman
1991). In good video games, the problems players face are ordered so that the earlier
ones are well built to lead players to form hypotheses that work well for later, harder
problems. It matters how the problem space is organized—that’s why games have
“levels”. Equal thought needs to be paid to how to order problems in a rich immersive
space in a science classroom, for example.