The learning principle from James Paul Gee’s “What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning & Literacy” that resonated the most with how I learn, is the probing principle. When I was in middle and high school, our teachers had us take a survey to see what type of learner we are (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, etc.) so they could use that information to help accommodate the class. With these surveys, and this information was by no means new to me, I ended up being a kinesthetic/ visual learner.
This relates to the probing principle in that I need to do something and try it out to then piece the puzzle together. I am also more of a math than English person, and to do math I can’t really explain it, I need to “probe” it and see what happens so I can eventually get to the product. In a video game context, in open world games or rpg’s, etc. you will see me talk to every npc to try and pieces stuff together. At times I don’t even pay attention to tutorials in the games, mainly because a tutorial can only do so much for me. I need to form my own hypothesis or come to my own conclusion by trying it out myself.
As Gee says, probing is to do something and then form a hypothesis based on that, and then do something again. In a video game context if you try and talk to a certain character you might get a piece of the storyline. You keep that information in mind, and talk to another character to see if the story you have in your mind plays out. For the math example, I would try out one method as to how I think I could get the answer. If it doesn’t seem to be working, I adjust. Either I try something new or maybe the original method had me on the right track and I change it a little.