Teachers Encouraging Teachers to Use Games

My wife is a teacher and belongs to the National Education Association. Each month they send out a magazine covering topics of interest for teachers. Sounds intriguing, I know, but the October issue's cover caught my attention as I was about to throw it out. "Game On!" appeared in large, bold characters and caused me to double take. Although I was a little discouraged when the subtitle suggested that kids could learn a lot from their "Xboxes," I was inclined to give the article a read.

Surprisingly, the article was not only well researched, but highly in favor of using games as teaching aides in the classroom. The author, Cindy Long, points out the educational value of simulation games that encourage the students to problem solve and think strategically. Games she points out specifically for the classroom include Civilization and SimCity, where the focus is on creating situations that allow the students to interact with the subject instead of passively engaging the material. And not only does the lesson encourage more active learning, it is also a lot more fun. As one teacher, Mr. Brock Dubbels of Minneapolis, puts it, "'We’re going to play a game’ sounds a lot more appealing to a class than, ‘We’re going to summarize a story and analyze a plot diagram.'" While I'm inclined to think that the author thought high school kids would benefit the most based on the game selections, I think that this would benefit all students, including elementary. Additionally, it is very encouraging to see a national organization in our corner.

The article even quickly touches on the inevitable topic of violence by disseminating some common sense, at least among gamers.

Games like Grand Theft Auto are popular with kids, but are “spectacularly inappropriate for the classroom,” MacKenty says. Look for games with age-rating labels and do your research to weed out the violent titles.

One point that really hit home for me was about clearly defining objectives for the lesson. By creating a discussion before hand and then following up after game play allows for extensive critical thinking regarding what the students have learned. As a gamer, I am not used to playing games in a way that encourages this level of thinking. In my defense, games have not traditionally been very deep, but as our industry matures, more games like Bioshock will attempt to stretch our mental muscles. Gamers need to be ready to meet those challenges, seeing the game on it's many levels, or we may be doomed to mindless shooters and football games.