Gaming for Knowledge

Imagine if Mario could teach you what you needed to know for your class. “It’s-a me! A-Mario! This is how you calculate a-quadratics!”. Wouldn’t that be amazing? Well, Mario can’t particularly teach us quadratics, but we could use other games to teach students; even if you modify the rules a little, or even the game itself a little. It would certainly make school a lot more interesting. I remember back in high school they would use games to help teach us. My Social Studies teacher even made us play Risk to help teach us. Not only did I learn that I can come back from two people and win the game, making people hate me, but I also learned about the topic. Many students play games anyways and waste time, or to de-stress, or whatever the reason may be. So, why not incorporate those skills and hours devoted to gaming into the classroom?

Games can interest students and ultimately help them focus on the lesson.

“Making learning fun motivates students and helps them pay attention and stay focused on the subject

• One reason to promote educational games is to encourage students to learn outside of class. Young adults will go out of their way to play games, even a single game, for hours on end
• There is also evidence that games allow students to focus well enough to learn better. Lepper and Cordova, 1992 have found that rewriting a lesson with a story context combined with a challenge for the student to overcome (in other words, making it into a game) significantly improves the learning performance of children” (Carlton, 2016)

Students would be more motivated to actually learn outside of the classroom if games were involved, because it has added an aspect to their life that they enjoy. Plus the method is different than what they are used to, and strays away from the boring old “sit down, shut up, and take notes” aspect of the classroom. And not only will it encourage students to learn, it can also help them to remember topics easier. People who can associate a lesson to either real life, or an interesting topic can help themselves remember a lot better. For me, it would be turning things into song, or yes, playing games.

Students who play games in class can interact with the material without any major consequences (as long as the game isn’t too intense). When a student messes up, they can be told it was just a mistake, and that they can try again. It may be frustrating, but the positive reassurance helps the student calm down and learn from their mistake.

“One reason that games (outside of gambling) are such a great escape from the real world is that bad consequences are rarely serious or lasting

• ‘Its only a game’
• If you lose, start the game over and try again.
• Often, it’s possible to recover within a game, and to use what you have learned to successfully complete a task.
• Characters and pieces may die, but this is rarely permanent.
• There are no consequences for the player personally” (Carlton, 2016)

Another way to look at it is:

We learn about what to do in Physical Education classes by participating in the games. We learn by doing, and then we take the tests to see what we have learned. So, why can we not do that for other classes? Understanding that certain classes or topics can’t particularly incorporate games into their lectures, but I believe that if it can be added, then it should definitely be given a shot. For example, reenacting the French Revolution and guillotining people in the classroom as a game probably will not go over very well. However, as an example from my Japanese class back in high school, we got into groups and had to form the Kanji characters and the other groups had to guess what the Kanji was, and what its meaning was. Surprisingly (because human Kanji can look weird), it really helped us learn what we needed to know. Even difficult ones to form, like 語 (GO- meaning: language) with four people, but we managed.

So, if games can be incorporated into the classroom, teachers and professors should definitely try their best so that students can have a chance to enjoy the lesson and actually look forward to going to class. Grades could potentially go up with methods that interest the student and actually help them learn

References:

Why Use Games to Teach?. (2017). Games. Retrieved 7 November 2017, from https://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/games/whygames.html