How to Use Gameplay to Enhance Classroom Learning
By Jade Branion - 2024-07-20
In our modern, tech-savvy world, we face exciting opportunities and real challenges. Sure, we worry about kids encountering harmful content online, dealing with cyberbullying, and spending too much time on screens, which more than 70% of parents constantly dread. But let's not forget—gaming holds incredible potential for learning and skill-building, along with many other benefits!
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Harnessing the Power of Gaming in a Classroom Setting
Research confirms that gaming substantially influences educational settings, and this study indicates that well-made instructional video games could provide students with many advantages, including:
- Experiencing a sense of control and freedom of choice in learning activities
- Achieving mastery of learning tasks and a sense of accomplishment
- Exploring their imaginations, acting on original ideas, creativity, and expressing different aspects of themselves and others
- Regulating their emotions
- Fostering social connections
These benefits can enhance learning experiences and support overall development. However, only some games will have a positive impact, so choose a game that prioritizes your learners’ needs to improve classroom learning.
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For example, choose gameplay that offers total control if your students struggle with self-esteem and maintaining a sense of autonomy. A game like House Flipper, which requires the player to buy, repair, and remodel devastated houses without assistance could develop viable strategies for progress. On the other hand, a game like Minecraft allows the player to freely explore, solve problems, and create unique stories or characters, making it suitable for less creative students.
How to Boost Classroom Learning Using Videogames
While playing a game is often easy, knowing how to integrate it in classroom environments is a different ballgame. Let’s see how you can do it:
1. Integrate With Curriculum
The video games you choose shouldn’t replace or contradict the official curriculum but rather enhance it. Use games that reinforce or invite the learner to explore more about a particular learning objective. With more than 80% of school-going children already being avid gamers, incorporating some popular titles into the curriculum could yield unbelievable academic results.
For example, with the Math Signs Game, learning mathematics can be much more exciting as students engage in concepts tied to international testing standards.
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2. Use Game-Based Assessments
Collect data from the games to understand your students’ strengths and areas for improvement, which is vital to enhance teaching methods. The goals and mechanics of the game will dictate the specific information to gather; therefore, design quizzes, tasks, and other related activities based on what the learner should grasp after playing.
The two common types of game-based assessments you could use are:
- Single game-based assessments
These are parameters used for individual competencies like verbal knowledge, numerical reasoning, risk-taking, or decision-making. For example, in the Pymetrics Balloon Game, players are given a balloon and awarded money for each pump.
But there’s a catch! The balloon can explode at any moment, so the player either collects the money at the opportune time or continues pumping and risks losing it all when the balloon pops. Based on when the player will quit, you can assess their decision-making abilities and risk tolerance.
- Scenario-based games
These measure skill sets by categorizing students in various contexts. Scenario-based games act as behavioral assessments of skills like problem-solving and job simulation.
For example, McKinsey Solve is a series of games where the player must solve specific problems to proceed to the next level. Educators will consider the process (such as the mouse movements and number of clicks) and the final result to measure decision-making, critical thinking, systems thinking, and situational awareness.
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3. Plan in Advance
Have the end in mind even before you start. Planning ensures that the games your learners engage in align with the lesson's objectives.
Important factors to consider when planning are:
- Know what you intend to remedy. Choose games designed to sharpen or instill a skill your learners may lack. The game you plan to use should facilitate a more profound comprehension of what seems to be a complex subject, but it should have dynamic features that match learners' proficiency levels.
- Play the game yourself. Play the game ahead of time to ensure it's perfect for the skills you need to teach, see how much control you have as a teacher (to make it fit your students' needs), see how easy it is to use, test how well it holds students' attention, see what kinds of content it offers, and see how it uses different instructional principles to meet student's unique needs.
- Focus on enrichment. Pick games that appeal to several faculties. When participants play games that use multiple senses, such as sight, sound, and touch, they’re encouraged to think outside the box and find new ways to absorb information.
- Remember multi-player functionality. Instead of concentrating on games with one or two players, include activities where the whole class participates together. This will help learners develop social skills while educating them to work together. Group activities provide an opportunity for learners to compete for better grades.
4. Use Entertaining Video Activities for Tricky Topics
Not everyone finds it easy to learn new topics. However, almost everyone can comprehend something in class through an engaging game, as opposed to the anxiety and pressure that accompany conventional classroom instruction.
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Rather than employing worksheets or textbooks to introduce complex topics, use learner-appropriate video games with missions and quests that finally drive a learner to finish a project. Combine challenging subjects with engaging video games and in-game activities for students with learning difficulties. This way, they’ll see learning not as an annoying task but as a fun way to acquire new skills.
Some popular games with missions and quests are:
- Grand theft auto
- Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
- Fall out: New Vegas
- Cyber Punk 2077
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
- God of War
- Elder’s Ring
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Inquire if anyone has any questions after you've explained the game’s rules, but pick games with easy-to-understand rules and directions; class time is too valuable to spend on clarifying complicated rules or providing detailed directions.
5. Involve Everyone, Including Parents
Get the backing of your school's administrators and other educators. Furthermore, you cannot overlook the crucial role of parents, guardians, and family members in supporting students' academic performance, many studies confirm this fact. Notify parents that you want to include specific age-appropriate video games in the lessons.
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Brainstorm creative and functional ways to involve everyone. One way is to ask for the parents’ input when customizing the video game: request their thoughts on the game's content and the themes they’d want incorporated. Having parents test the game before introducing it is another way to ensure it’s appropriate for children. It will avoid any confusion or misunderstanding, making it easier for them to help (both ethically and financially, since certain games require a subscription fee).
The Final Word
For all the above strategies to yield success, always encourage pre- and post-video game analysis and discussions. Only conclude the lesson after allowing learners to reflect on the game and encourage healthy discussions that can gauge or activate prior knowledge. Have clear, relevant learning goals, and promote critical thinking by discussing how the game relates to the main concepts in the official curriculum and real-life situations.