Games in the classroom, a reality, but which ones are good for my students?

By Gustavo Sarmiento
Spring Branch Elementary

Having the chance to give my students technology devices gave me a great opportunity to see the students in action with their equipment. The opportunity to identify what they like and what they don’t. At the same time the struggle as teacher to select correctly the apps and games that I believed were the best to help students practice new concepts learned.

New technologies give new ways to teach content to the students. Gamification, one of those strategies, for some might be a trend, to others, a great way to engage students to experiment or to practice rigorously their newly acquired content.

Effective instruction includes rigorous activities for the students, what we always look for when selecting activities for them. Barbara Blackburn defined rigor as creating an environment in which each student is expected to learn at high levels, each student is supported so that he or she can learn at high levels, and each student demonstrates learning at high levels (Blackburn, 2008)

When students engage in meaningful rigorous activities, they get the opportunity to practice their newly acquired content. Students can complete the process to internalize those concepts that might become more permanent. Games, properly developed, can help a teacher reach this goal.

In the past years different companies have started to implement games in their professional development programs in order to help employees increase their abilities and be better at their job. This type of professional development could be the way employees (our current students most likely) will learn specific skills needed for the company they will work for. Games are starting to permeate from the entertainment arena into the education arena.

Students come to the classrooms already knowing how to work with technology, some with a better degree of understanding than others. In the end, outside school life they have been interacting with technology for most of the activities they are truly interested and engaged in. What happens when they come to the classroom? Are teachers providing them with tools to interact, to learn, and to work the same way they will find once they finish their school life?

The real challenge for teachers is to find the games or if you are up to the challenge, to develop them effectively to help students reach that goal. What should a game have in order to be effective? Researchers agree that the following should be included:

- Role playing. When students have the opportunity to have a role in a game their creative sense will spark. “Critical learning in any domain should lead to learners becoming, in a sense, designers” (Gee 2003/2006, p. 96)

- Stages. The students get to acquire knowledge by going through different stages of learning as Bruner suggested for the Intellectual Development in Children (Acts of Teaching, p.258). Stages in a game help support the learning process, however the outcome or outcomes from one stage should be used in the upper stages helping the students to make connections.

- Rewards. Students are often driven by this. Our lives have become more and more the search for rewards whether intrinsic or extrinsic. This kind of system keeps people going to certain stores to get points that will translate later into discounts. Students are driven by this system too. They keep engaged and looking for more.

- Collaboration, opportunities to interact with others. We have the need to interact, to be social. “Gamers are extremely productive and collaborative within the realm of a game.” [Friedman, Stan. “Finding the Future: Inside NYPL’s All-Night Scavenger Hunt.” Library Journal. July 13, 2011.]

- Sandboxes. The place within the game where the player has the opportunity to practice skills not having the risk to fail or loose points if the activity is not done correctly. As suggested by Gee in his book Good video games + good learning: Collected essays on video games, learning and literacy. New York: Peter Lang., J. P. (2007)

I don’t believe that gamification should take the place of actual instruction, but can become a great medium for our students to get a virtual exposure to possible real life experiences. The opportunity to face the challenges they might encounter outside school life. Why not give them the chance of a head start?

Other sources:
Gamification in Education by Akesha - Purdue University, Instructional Development Center blog.
The Principles Behind Game-Based Learning, Bowling Green State University.