Play Along: Gaming in Education

From the days of Oregon Trail to Sim City and beyond, games have played a role in education. With the increased availability of devices and the focus on critical thinking in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), implementing gaming in the classroom—and the school library—is a great way to involve students in formats they favor and, at the same time, build skills they need for the future.

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

Katie Salen, game designer, professor, and supporter of classroom gaming, says, “Games and playing have been part of classrooms for a long time. Play is the way that human beings learn about the world…. That’s how we discover how things work” (Schaffhauser 2013, 27).

Two terms, “game-based learning” and “gamification,” are used almost interchangeably in discussions of gaming in education, but must be distinguished from one another. “Game-based learning” is an approach where actual games—particularly digital—are aligned to learning goals and standards and implemented in a classroom setting. This includes simulation, problem solving, and situational activities that involve feedback to encourage players to act. “Gamification” is taking elements of gaming and applying them to classroom practice. Most commonly this means the use of rewards, badges, and rankings to give extrinsic motivation to students. “Gamification” can be used with or without actually using games and gaming.

WHEN DOES IT MAKE SENSE TO USE GAME-BASED LEARNING (GBL)?

Since students are familiar with gaming for their out-of-school lives, using GBL takes advantage of the motivation students already experience. The level of engagement shown by children and young adults in their personal gaming time can also work to an advantage in the school setting. Students may be more involved in some content that is currently covered in textbook form or even online sites when it is presented in a gaming format.

Gaming builds action on the choices made by the user. Game-based learning can take advantage of that buy-in to engage students in content. Gaming can also be a great leveler—students at all levels can enter the game and use their strengths to participate and collaborate to make progress in the game. Because gaming involves choice and individual action, it can also foster critical thinking and decision making.

HOW WOULD GAMES WORK IN THE LIBRARY?

Games can be added to the school library collection, and online links to educational games can be highlighted on the library website. The library program could include hosting gaming sessions where students can share strategies and run tournaments. Take a look at participating in the annual International Games Day @ Your Library event to raise awareness for the school community and the library. The library can be a place to begin the conversation about using games across curricula.

Short of adopting an existing game to use in instruction, think about adapting existing lessons and activities to a gaming approach. Orientation sessions, often in the form of scavenger hunts, can be reimagined as a quest for information. Players can then gain points or rewards for each phase of the quest. Research process instruction—locating materials, questioning, determining search strategies—can also be used in a gaming approach. Can students be set up in teams? Can each team have a quest? What assessment will be used—or is this activity a pre- or post-assessment in itself?

Digital gaming in education has been around for decades. There are challenges using game-based learning, but there are also benefits for students. Developing curricular-based games takes more time than developing games designed for entertainment. Implementing GBL in a classroom—with the attendant professional development—can also be daunting. Outside of school, students have free choice in the games they use. Will the choices available within a specific educational game chosen by the teacher be enough to get student buy-in for the work? While we know GBL can build critical thinking skills, building support for it with the school community may be problematic. In this era of high-stakes testing, how will game-based learning co-exist? The good news from developers looking at the K-12 market is that there is more focus on building assessment into the educational gaming experience. That data can inform learning goals and channel feedback to students.

WHY GIVE GAME-BASED LEARNING A TRY?

Think about the technology resources now available in schools. The numbers of devices for students to use in online or school-based gaming products has grown. Advances in technology have also meant more sophisticated software that can involve students not only in the action of the program, but in information-seeking to make appropriate choices. The mastery approach inherent in gaming can guide assessment. GBL can level the academic playing field—everyone can participate and collaboration is encouraged, such as in multiplayer games online.

WHERE IS THIS ALL GOING?

There are two charter schools that focus on pedagogy around game-based learning supported by the Institute for Play: Quest To Learn (Q2L) in New York City and ChicagoQuest. Their work will inform us. Universities around the country also have initiatives focused on gaming in education. Their work and research will further define the viability of game-based learning for students who have grown up playing with digital games. Beyond curricula involving students in gaming, there is a growing movement to let students create their own games.

WHY SCHOOL LIBRARIES?

Why should school librarians take a role in this renewed option for classroom activities? Think of the growth of gaming for personal interest. In 2010, digital games generated $25 billion in sales (Anderson, et al. 2012). Students are gaming and finding rewarding payback outside of schools. It is time to bring it into the school library practice too. It’s all about play—the first frontier of learning among very young children. Gaming is a vehicle to bring engagement and development of critical thinking to students. As Scot Osterweil, director of the MIT Education Arcade and a professor at the MIT Media Lab states in the article, “Three Questions for Tech Education Pioneer Scot Osterweil,” by Rutkin,

What we need to do, to some degree, is sort of return to an era of free-range children, where there’s more play, more discovery. The problem in America right now is that kids are having less time to explore and invent and discover. The one space where I think kids are still being as adventuresome as they ever were is in the space of games. …I don’t mean to say that all education could be done through games, but I think we can look at what happens in game play and we should try to model that and make more of our education system like that, where we present kids with authentic challenges, give them freedom to really explore those challenges and invent solutions (2013).