Dive Brief:
- Andrew Miller, an instructional coach at Shanghai American School, writes for Edutopia that teachers can harness elements of gaming to engage students in classroom activities, and he recommends starting by letting students self-assess their “gamer brains,” which can inform future lesson planning.
- Games offer opportunities to try again after failure, an important skill teachers can work into grading and reflection following certain lessons, and they also present an opportunity for an “epic win,” which students can experience (and celebrate) in the classroom if they overcome an appropriately challenging task.
- Miller also suggests incorporating opportunities for voluntary learning into the classroom, in line with the idea that people choose to play games, and ways to do this include building choice into everyday activities and projects.
Dive Insight:
When games like Minecraft and Pokémon Go come along, becoming cultural phenomena, it is easy for classroom teachers to work them into lesson planning and capitalize on student excitement for the game of choice. As Miller points out, however, there are strategies that can be harvested from these games that can come back to the classroom alone.
Student enthusiasm for games has been built into many educational programs, especially at the elementary school level. As students get older, educators eventually start to question whether they should be enticed to learn or simply learn to do things they don’t always want to do. As many research studies show, however, the skill-building in gaming can stretch far beyond content at hand.