The word “metacognitive,” or thinking about thinking refers to a practice of asking reflective questions, so the student learns how they learn, and can become their own teacher. This can also be referred to as “vertical pedagogy” – that is, learning new skills on top of old ones. The teacher’s primary job is to keep breaking processes down into the most granular skills possible, then scaffold the process of practicing them and building back up. Essentially, it means breaking down complex processes into the individual skills it takes to accomplish them, then designing exercises to strengthen those skills, then putting it all back together. The term “skills pedagogy” refers to how most sports and musical instruments are taught. Basically, it puts two branches of teaching together, for an exponentially greater effect. In real life, I work as a teacher, and use a teaching style known as “metacognitive skills pedagogy.” That’s a term worth quite a bit in student loans, which essentially refers to the current trend in teaching. I’ve planned several posts about this, including one next week on how this affects EVE’s monetization – but because I plan to get my money’s worth out of this concept, I first want you to have a strong foundation of what I’m talking about. This framework could be applied all over the game and the community.

The problem, in short, is that EVE usually asks us to scale the skills we already have horizontally-across more accounts and assets-rather than learning vertically, getting better and better at the game. This problem of skills development is responsible for the challenges in developing new Fleet Commanders, in switching in-game careers, and creates a feedback loop in large alliances, where players don’t grow new skills an are not asked to grow new skills. This both makes the Day One experience of a new player more like the opening of “Predators” than your average kindergarten, and also limits the possibilities for advanced players to keep getting better at the game. No, not from the developer, CCP Games, but in how its players are asked and encouraged to develop their skills in-game: specifically… they’re not.

Eve online multiboxing