Learning Through Games

Games have always had a place within the classroom. Weather it is no, low or high tech, games have always been a great way to engage students. Games that you use within your classroom can be simple problem solving to more advanced activities that will excite your students to learn. If you consider that playing is also used among animals, it is thought that games are a biological response.

If you want to gameify one f your lessons, there are five game mechanics to consider:

1. Every action that a student makes within your game will result in feedback. Remember, games are meant to be interactive.

2. Feedback is not threatening to the students. A good example is playing a platformer game. If the user dies, they can restart from the last checkpoint. They are getting feedback on what to do and not do as they are playing.

3. Allow different difficulties of the games you create for your class. This should be similar to selecting "easy", "medium" or "hard" difficulties within a game.

4. Make sure your game allows the students to take different pathways to get to the end goal. There is no one correct way to play a game.

5. Games focus on rules and mechanics of the games rather then facts or events.

The other thing you need to look it is the end goal for the game itself. What is the outcome potential for your students?

• What is your goal? Is it to cover content? Or maybe develop a skill? Possible for review?

• What are the game mechanics? This ties back into the list of five looked at above. Des your game allow the player to choose their own path and experiment? Is there logical progression?

• Is your game engaging for students?

• How long will it take to play?

• What skills do your students need to play?

Something that I have had plenty of success within my classrooms is digital escape rooms. I create an adventure that they need to complete. The story follows a logical path with progression. Along the way the students are provided clues to puzzles that allow them to solve and continue. Furthermore, I also provide time limits which really helps motivation and focus. I have used Escape rooms with Technology and Math classrooms successfully.

However games that you choose to use within your classroom and content do not have to be created from Scratch. Yahtzee is a game that can be utilized by a math class. Minecraft has an educational version that teaches code. Even something simple like hangman for vocabulary is a game that will help engage your students.

When deciding to use games within your lessons, you must be aware of the challenges you might encounter. A lack of digital technology, excess time to prepare them or not having enough students are some f the challenges you might encounter. Although students tend to love technology and games are generally easier to create and incorporate with tech, there are options for creating offline game lessons.

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