The A-Team: Karen Towers

Karen Towers: "It was good that I was frustrated…."

Karen Towers is in her 34th year as a teacher, but she was in her first day as a gamer when she was asked to play the game "Zoombinis" at the Advance Team Institute. "I sat there and nothing was happening. I thought 'is it broken?' And I felt really, really frustrated."

Karen teaches Math at the Maces Lane Middle School in Dorchester County, and as she says, games "are a whole new ballgame" for her. But, after the Advance Team Institute, it's a ballgame that she wants to play. "We as teachers have so much on our plates," she says. "And we're missing a huge population of students because we're asking young kids to come in and learn out of their learning style. If games can help kids learn, then we have to use them." One of things that most appeals to Karen about digital learning games is that they "make failure OK." "When I give a test," she says, "the students either have the right answer or they don't. With games, you always get another chance. That's going to help kids."

And while some similarly "experienced" teachers might not be so enthusiastic about a new initiative like LG2G, Karen sees it as a great opportunity. And she's confident of her role in relation to the new technologies: "Even with a game, I have to be there to motivate the students. And we as teachers will always have to be able to gauge what we want kids to learn and to assess what they did learn. That will always be the most important piece."

It’s because she’s so sure of herself as a teacher (and because she identifies so strongly with her students) that Karen can embrace the frustrations that can come with trying to learn something new. "It was good that I was frustrated with 'Zoombinis,'" she says. "That's how students feel sometimes. And sometimes we as teachers don't remember that feeling of total frustration. We need to be reminded of how kids feel when they come to class and don't know what we're talking about. It's just a reminder that you can't assume anything in education, whether you're working with children or adults."

Even after you've been teaching for 34 years, that is …

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