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Video Games in Education
Video Games in Education
Games are a potentially powerful educational tool. This is due partly to the fact that almost any game needs to teach, if only how to play the game. Coupled with the undeniable engagement of even the most frivoulous game, they can keep students attention, sometimes despite the teacher’s best effort.
Tetris tests a number of basic skills and is a surprising geometry teaching tool. (Mind that your students will waste time on it). Coupled with the analysis of what if functions, this is an excellent example of integrating a game into a lesson.
Use of Games in the Classroom
Use of Games in the Classroom
A great deal of research has gone into utilising these features in the classroom. A 2019 review found that games had been repeatedly shown to help with underlying skills (such as special reasoning) and had improved student education by significant amounts in a number of specific subjects (Mayer, 2019). There is also an obvious draw for helping less motivated students, perhaps even by making use of incidental learning, or stealth teaching as I like to call it. One paper shows the use of a retail game in teaching History (Rodrígez-Ponga 2021), so it need not even use specialised tools to do so, though educational or 'serious' games exist and can also be quite beneficial.
An early usage of games in education came up with a useful framework to help ensure that games are used wisely.
1. Students must experiment the game discussing why they make the decisions they do.
2. Reflect on why they did what they did in the game
3. Then do a curriculum activity tailored to the game.
4. At each stage, discus the whole process.
(Gros, 2007)
Challenges of games in the classroom
Challenges of games in the classroom
If we leave aside my usual griping about how students will use these educational tools to distract themselves, there are also a number of challenges that must be considered when using educational games. Firstly, they are not a replacement for a teacher, teacher’s need to understand the game and how it links and help students make those solid connections. Also games must be chosen carefully as not all are beneficial to education (Zhonggen, 2019).
That said, I think that as long as they are chosen and used carefully games are powerful tools in the classroom. If only to make an uncooperative class give you a break.
Square Towers is a game that tries to teach squares. As you can see it asks you to figure out what number of acrobats you need to make a tower with certain parameters
Once you've gotten the answer it explains the maths behind it, note the graph showing the exponential curve. Maths has a lot of good games for it
Creating games in education
Creating games in education
If we are to use games to spark creativity in particular, the obvious solution is to have students make games. This is an inherently creative act, is often fun and engaging and can teach the students about design processes and the various kinds of creative thinking. Even if you are not going to teach it to students, a passing familiarity with game design will help a teacher create games for their classes or identify games that will not be helpful.
Making a game can be a good way to teach design processes. Even in a thrown together basic demonstration, you can see how it begins with ideas and planning.
The final product with code, block code is very simple to use, and easy to understand.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Games are powerful tools that can inspire creativity or just help a classroom teacher, understanding and utilising them should be part of every teacher's toolkit
Quiz game from Tutorial
Quiz game from Tutorial
Made with the assistance of John Lee and Hannah Knox
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/988971911
References
References
Diego Rodríguez-Ponga. (2021). The The Application of Video Games in Education. Multidisciplinary Journal of School Education, 10(1(19)). https://doi.org/10.35765/mjse.2021.1019.08
Gros, B. (2007). Digital Games in Education: The Design of Games-Based Learning Environments. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 40(1), 23–38. https://doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2007.10782494
Mayer, R. E. (2019). Computer Games in Education. Annual Review of Psychology, 70(1), 531–549. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010418-102744
Zhonggen, Y. (2019). A Meta-Analysis of Use of Serious Games in Education over a Decade. International Journal of Computer Games Technology, 2019, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/4797032
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