The case for gaming in Education

At the outset, the goal for all educators, no matter if they're a Kindergarten Teacher or Graduate School Professor, is for their students to increase their knowledge and proficiency in a specific course of study.  Of course, we've structured courses with tests, grades and other benchmarks along the way.  However, overall, the goal remains the same.

A common problem for almost all teachers is getting the most out of their time with the students and ensuring that concepts stick, especially in subjects that their students may not be innately attracted to.  There are a number of strategies and practices that can be employed to achieve this.  Many of them have been successful and have positively impacted the classroom experience.  In this post, I would like to examine the strategy of utilizing gaming for learning.

In our society, when you consider the most effective strategies for teaching and learning, I don't think gaming is one of the first suggestions most educators would mention.  When you think of gaming, most minds usually jump to video or computer games, which can carry a negative stigma thanks to the soaring popularity of titles like "Call of Duty", "Grand Theft Auto" or "Madden NFL".  Those who play these sorts of games spend hours upon hours doing so, with their characters being used to kill or steal within the setting.  Though much of that is true, it's not the complete picture of what gaming is.  And when utilized in a productive way, gaming can actually be an amazingly effective tool that few resources can match in the educational realm.

So what is the kind of gaming I'm speaking of?  I feel this article developed by the Educause Learning Initiative (ELI) defines it best: "gameful learning" that increases engagement, enhance learning and explore new models of education.  Basically, gamification for learning is using the advantages of gaming (FUN) to benefit the educational process.  Tom Chatfield gave a number of examples of this kind of gaming along with interesting facts in his TedTalk "7 ways games reward the brain".  

As an aspiring foreign language teacher, I appreciated this piece by Julie Sykes, that speaks about the use of digital games in learning another language.  The 4 most pertinent points to me were these: goals, engagement, feedback and motivation.  Through gaming, goals can not only become much clearer for students but also attainable.  They can see their progress and their aim is to meet the goal in order to continue in the game.  This also provides some motivation.  I appreciated the example Sykes gave of students wanting to make it to the next level before going to eat dinner.  It's clear that this also provides a greater level of engagement, which each teacher of a foreign language seeks most.  Learners are now searching (with great vigor) for the answers to a question or meaning of a word.  Finally, feedback, which can provide some progression indicators, is also provided.  This is an essential part of language learning so that students can understand concepts and vocabulary.

See...all gaming isn't bad.  In fact, it may be one of the most effective tools available to educators everywhere.