How Schools are Using Gaming to Teach

EducationWorld is pleased to present this article by Shari Caton, a former 8th-grade English teacher turned freelance writer. The article originally appeared in TechEdge, a quarterly magazine published by TCEA. To join or for more information, visit www.tcea.org.

Gaming, in general, is bad for kids. It causes the brain to atrophy, contributes to violence, and lowers concentration levels. Moreover, common knowledge dictates that electronic gaming is a detriment to academic learning. Or is it?

While it is true that for years experts in child development have strongly cautioned parents against allowing their children excessive play at video and computer games, a new paradigm has emerged which suggests that gaming is actually beneficial to learning, and schools across the nation are testing this notion by encouraging students to play video games in the classroom.

James Gee, an education professor at the University of Wisconsin and author of the book, What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy, argues that gaming, if used correctly, can both improve and enhance a person’s coordination and visual skills.

Further, he insists that because gaming is challenging, entertaining, and complicated, it will improve, rather than deteriorate, concentration.

Research findings from the University of Rochester in New York support this theory. In a study that included participants between the ages of 18 and 23, it was determined that gamers could keep track of picking out objects from a cluttered environment better than individuals of the same age who rarely played. Already, the military takes advantage of computer games to help simulate situational maneuvers to help their soldiers carry out missions more effectively.

But which games both enhance cognitive skills and meet the demands of the curriculum designed for academic learning? Many educators across the nation are utilizing the popular game Minecraft to teach students concepts that apply to math, science, the humanities, and even genetics. While playing this game, students learn how to build with construction blocks, fend off enemies, and explore unknown territories.

Although Minecraft was not designed with education in mind, its flexibility of design has enabled teachers to modify it to suit their curriculum needs. One educator in New York saw its potential and created MinecraftEdu, a classroom version of the game where teachers can select objectives for the students.

For example, in one lesson, teachers are able to import already-created famous structures, such as the Roman Colosseum, so students can explore a three-dimensional replication of the original structure. To apply that knowledge, students can create similar structures themselves. When they build, students learn to create scale models, thus learning about ratio and proportion. This lesson can integrate into social studies where students learn about the types of structures built by certain civilizations.

If the students are playing in survival mode, they learn about the means necessary to survive with limited resources. They must consider their environment, what it offers, and how they can best utilize it.

Finally, playing Minecraft can help improve students’ reading comprehension because it allows visualization from the text provided. This means they are able to reconstruct setting, scenes, and plot points. As every reading teacher knows, the better a student’s ability to visualize, the better reader he or she is.

Proponents of the game agree that it guides students toward collaborative learning, helps them find solutions for interpersonal challenges, and allows them to discover ways to manage resources. In the process, students regularly make mistakes, try something new, and then fail until a solution evolves.

Linda Polin, a professor at Pepperdine University who researches how students learn through video games, says it is through this cycle of trying and failing and then trying again that a student discovers “how to be someone who’s successful at learning.”

In schools around the nation, students are also playing games such as World of Warcraft and Angry Birds to apply their knowledge. In World of Warcraft, students choose a profession, join guilds, and team up with warring factions of their choice. Angry Birds, a game that involves hurling animated birds at pigs, uses algebraic concepts, such as understanding a parabola and determining the trajectory of an object. Already, teachers are designing their lessons and activities by using these games to help them meet specific standards in their state’s curriculum.

Some Texas districts are taking that notion a step further and offer classes where students use specified coding to create games. In Geronimo, Texas, at Navarro ISD, for example, students in Chema Chavez’s gaming classes work with a programming language called Scratch, developed by MIT.

Using Scratch, students are able to program various types of interactive media, including stories, games, and animation, and share them with people from all over the world.

Chavez says the beauty of the gaming classes lies in how a student can work at his or her own pace. Students log in, and if they need to return to a previous tutorial from an earlier lesson, they are free to do so. Additionally, Chavez explains that there is more than one way to achieve a goal, and different students go about it through different avenues, using different coding to create similar outcomes. This differentiated approach to problem-solving helps all kinds of learners feel successful in his class.

Chavez teaches gaming in both junior high and high school classes, and he admits that a lot of math is involved. Almost immediately, students must become familiar with mathematical concepts using the X and Y-axis. In fact, his high school students are only able to take the gaming classes after they have completed Algebra 1.

“In the process of programming games, students are troubleshooting, problem solving, and collaborating with each other to find solutions,” Chavez explained. “There is a lot of creative thinking going on. Students build games with their own personality, their own ideas, and they get a lot of satisfaction out of what they do. It is as hard or as simple as they want it to be.”

And as for the fast-paced kids who learn quickly and finish their projects rapidly...what do they do while the others are working on catching up? Play a computer game, of course.

 

Resources

Chavez, Chema (Feb. 2014). Personal interview.

How Mainstream Video Games are Being Used as Teaching Tools (Jan. 8, 2013). eSchool News.

Miller, Andrew (April 3, 2012). Ideas for Using Minecraft in the Classroom.

Perez, Anthony and Jed Kim (Aug. 14, 2013). Minecraft Blowing Up the Classroom; Educators Say the Game Can Teach Everything from Math to Genetics. So Cal Education.

Sohn, Emily (Jan. 19, 2004). What Video Games Can Teach Us. Student Science.

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