So you want to bring a little fun into your classroom and games seem like the perfect way to do it. How do you start?
It might be tempting to Google “gamification” and see what comes up. But let me steer you in a different direction. Gamification has a mixed reputation in the world. For many, it’s a cheap way to paint a little games on your learning content. Ian Bogost has called this approach the Mary Poppins remedy—a spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down. Less generously, this is the chocolate covered brocollii approach. At the worst, it is simply BS.
So while there is nothing wrong with adding points or levels or power-ups to lessons to your teaching any more than it is an issue bribing a class to study with cookies or an early class release, gamification tends to take all the fun out of playing games.
What’s the other way?
I think there are four basic approaches to using games in your classroom:
- Play games
- Talk about games
- Modify games
- Make games
Let me take each in turn.
PLAYING GAMES
If you want to bring games into your classroom, the easiest way to do it is just pick a game and play it. A game doesn’t have to have anything to do with your teaching and learning domain to provide healthy connection and priming benefits to your students. Play Duck, Duck, Goose. Or a triva game. Or set up a Nerf basket in your classroom and let students shoot freethrows for candy. It will make a difference. And without much effort, you have managed to bring games into your classroom.
But what about play that is directly relevant to what you teach? These days, there are learning games in almost every domain. A little web searching can go a long way. So, for example, if you are teaching coding, maybe you could introduce your students to Code Combat. This game will teach you Javascript and Python in an entertaining package. It’s fun, it’s a game, and it’s relevant.
TALK ABOUT GAMES
Too often, teachers get stuck on the idea of playing games to teach a subject when they miss the obvious—talking about games can be as much fun as playing them. Teaching a class on ancient Egypt? Have the students play Assassin’s Creed Origins—a fully realized 3D world set in a mythical time of the Pharos. But rather than let the game do the heavy lifting of teaching about an ancient culture, let the students play the game then come back to them and have them critique their expereince. What did the game get right? What did it get wrong? What could be improved? What did they learn about ancient Egypt from a game?
I used to teach an urban planning class. And yes, we used SimCity. But it turns out that SimCIty is a terrible game to teach much about planning beyond the idea that there is such a thing as zoning and that cities are complex. In the real world, there are laws and citizens get to vote. You can’t just blow up roads and buildings when you like. SimCity is, at best, a simulation of totalitarian rule. And since I was not preparing the future Stalins of the world, it turned out the game was better as a tool to stimulate conversations about what it took to design and run a city much more than a software platform that taught anything practical to would-be planners.
Games are fun to play. That’s a start. Talking about the experience is a wonderful way to carry that fun forward, directly into the learning objectives for your c lass.
MODIFY GAMES
Closely related to talking about games is the idea if getting your hands dirty and making changes to games. You can do this as a design exercise, having students describe what changes they would make to a game. Or you can do this as an actual making activity—having students break a apart a game and put it back together with a purpose and point.
But, you might say, I don’t teach a computer class. My students don’t know how to program! And fair enough. But who said we were only talking about videogames? Crack open a copy of Monopoly. Perhaps you are teaching a class on social justice. Have the students fix Monopoly to have a socially just message. All the parts are there. All you need is note cards and an imagination. Or have student propose a Fortnight mod that teaches supply and demand. The sky is the limit with modifications.
I used to have student reskin Chess to be about something else. Are you teaching about the Civil War? OK, what historical figures map to which chess pieces? Are you are teaching a wine appreciation class? OK, reskin the graphics of chess to be red versus white. May the best vintage win!
The point of modifying games is to get students engaged in a critical practice where they are thinking about the system of the game and thinking about whatever content you want them to explore. Maybe there are no good games out there in your subject area. But what games are close? What happens when you ask your students to play with games to find that instructional purpose? You end up with play with purpose.
MAKE GAMES
Or, why not just ask your students to make games? Again, you don’t need to be a programmer or a game designer to take a pile of note cards, some dice, a few tokens and lots of imagination and turn it all into a game. Sure, a lot of the games might be more Candyland than Grand Theft Auto. But the practice of making, designing and digging into domain content to create teaching games is a process that rewards with deeper insight. So, you teach the novels of Emily Brontë and can’t find a solid game to bring into your classroom? Great! Give the students a go at creating a game that lets you play in Brontë’s literary university. The World of Wuthering Heights? You might be surprised what your students can do.
CONCLUSION
This quick tour should give you a sense of the different ways to bring games, whole games, into your classroom. Gamification borrows bits and pieces of what makes games pleasurable and too often leaves the fun at the classroom door. By embracing games for what they are—designed systems to invite play and generate fun—and you have unlocked real power of play.