Game-Based Learning - How to Make It Work for Your Students!

Game-Based Learning - How to Make It Work for Your Students!

Debates regarding updating the curriculum should include strategies for keeping students engaged and ensuring that they are acquiring critical thinking skills, self-confidence, and creativity— capabilities that they will need in the future workplace.

As more school districts consider transitioning their curricula, the number of options available to overcome these concerns has grown. Game-based learning is one of these solutions. This strategy for teaching is well-suited to reap the full benefits of from either a hands-on or digital curriculum.

Game-Based Learning - What Exactly It Is?

For ages, games have been utilized as a learning aid. Game-based learning is built on the idea of teaching through practice, failure, and goal achievement. This concept underpins video games as well as more traditional card and board games. The player begins slowly and improves their skills until they are able to navigate the most challenging levels with ease. Games that are well-planned and created will have enough difficulty to keep the player interested while being simple enough to win.

Game-based learning applies the same approach to teaching a curriculum. Students collaborate toward a common goal by making decisions and then experiencing both the rewards and repercussions of those decisions. In the process, they actively learn and practice how to do things correctly. This process promotes active learning rather than passive learning.

The usefulness of game-based learning is demonstrated by flight simulators. During their training, pilots often use flight simulators. They are given extremely clear objectives to achieve and are required to practice until they are able to do so. The end outcome is far more effective than simply reading manuals or listening to lectures.

Learning Through Games vs. Learning from Books

The education sector has always been a slow-moving system. On the one hand, delayed change is a positive thing since it helps avoid the problems of accepting education fads before they've been rigorously tested. On the other hand, it results in a system that is slow to adjust to the world's quickly changing technological landscape. The only option to boost that response rate is to change the systemic approach to curriculum, which is no easy undertaking.

Textbooks are a significant factor in why change takes so long. When a textbook is published, it contains all of the most up-to-date material, instructional methods, and theories at the time it was sent to print, which is usually at least a year before it reaches the classroom. Because textbooks are designed to be used for years, it takes a long time for curricula to be revised and content to be updated. In contrast, digital and hands-on resources can be updated more readily, making them more current and efficient.

How To Make Game-Based Learning Work for Your Students?

Well, you've chosen a fun and acceptable classroom game, and your students are incredibly excited. Now it's time to put your game to work in the classroom. To assure success, follow these instructions! -

Have A Strategy in Mind

This may seem self-evident, yet it is often overlooked in the implementation of game-based learning as well as other curriculum strategies. With respect to game-based learning, many questions need to be answered to chart your course. Are they planned for your students to play every day or just on particular days? What will be the time duration? Are they going to be used at home or in the classroom? It's entirely up to you how you manage the game, but we've discovered that kids are frequently so anxious to play classroom games that they request extra home assignments including these games. Yes, you read that right: pupils are requesting extra schoolwork. In that scenario, we advocate enlisting the help of students' parents and ensuring that they are aware that these activities are an important part of their children's education.

Choose The Appropriate Format

Due to the widespread availability of smartphones and other handheld devices, digital games have become extremely popular among children and teenagers. Similarly, if your school has a computer lab or in-class gadgets, classroom games will be an easy choice.

If digital games aren't getting students up and involved, consider alternative types of interactive educational activities. To that end, think about whether you'd like your pupils to work alone or in groups. In group work, most students are outspoken and active, which allows them to hone their social and interpersonal skills. On the other hand, some students enjoy individual work. Group work also doesn't make sense in some subjects. Finally, ensure that the format you choose is suitable for both you and your pupils, as well as simple to apply.

Assess Efficacy, Gather Input, And Repeat the Process

Finally, you must ensure that the games you use are truly assisting students in mastering the topic and progressing in your classroom. It's much easier with instructional digital games if your students have their own accounts and a built-in way to track progress and involvement, such as earned Experience Points. These indicators are frequently linked to how much effort students put into implementing concepts learned in class.

Furthermore, students should have some voice in how they learn, even if you are the leader of the classroom. If you see that certain students are having trouble with the format you've chosen, you should solicit input from all of your students to ensure that your games are functioning properly. If, for example, the difficulty does not scale well and some students continually underperform, you can divide your class into tiers and assign tasks and activities to each tier based on their skill level.

Game-Based Learning Is the Way of The Future!

Everyone enjoys playing games, so why not incorporate them into the classroom? After all, one of the most important goals of education is to remind students that learning is a rewarding and enjoyable experience. Your children will obtain valuable computer literacy and social skills, retain more of the concepts you teach them, and come to class excited to learn if you use classroom games.

Game-based learning is designed to be adaptable. The games are tested and modified during the creation process to make them a more effective learning tool. The game can be modified to reflect new information in the field or changes in educational methodologies. After the game is released, it can be updated with new information, strategies, and other features. There are even student-monitoring analytic tools in games that allow teachers to observe students so that the game can be changed in future versions. Bottom-line: games provide an effective and efficient means to not only get your students engaged in the learning process but also benefit from the knowledge acquired along the way!