University of Texas-Brownsville and Texas Southmost College

Location: Brownsville, Texas

Enrollment: 13,019

Enrollment may not be as large as some of the other schools in the country, but when it comes to game-based learning UTB and TSC is making a big impact. Physics assistant professor Soumya Mohnay sparked the trend when he launched the inaugural course, “Elementary Physics Through Video Games” in the fall semester of 2011. Like the name suggests, it teaches non-science majors the fundamentals of physics by analyzing commercial videogames such as Laura Croft: Tomb Raider, AngryBirds and Little Big Planet. Three PlayStation consoles and two plasma TVs are used in the class. For a peek into Mohnay and his work, click here.

Purdue University

Location: West Lafayette, Indiana

Enrollment: 30,836

Purdue is home to the Center for Serious Games and Learning in Virtual Environments, an active research hub that explores the effectiveness of educational-based games for both K-12 and higher education classrooms. So it shouldn’t come to a surprise that the school incorporates game-based learning in its own courses. Currently, a handful of courses, like “Introduction to Aerospace Design,” use simulator-games to enhance curriculum.

University of Madison-Wisconsin

Location: Madison, Wisconsin

Enrollment: 42,041

The University of Madison-Wisconsin has made several efforts to incorporate game-based learning in its curriculum. Custom-made games “Cool It” and “Melody Mixer” were designed for engineering majors and music majors respectively. Future educators also have the opportunity to enroll in “Instructional Technology, Learning, and Games”—a course that specifically teaches future teachers how to incorporate technology and videogames into the classroom.

Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Enrollment: 4,859

The Wharton School is the University of Pennsylvania’s business school. The b-school gets attention all on its own simply because it’s doing the most to include videogames into the curriculum. In fact, there is an array of custom-made videogames that teach everything from economics to management skills. For example, FareGame is an interactive game designed to teach students about setting prices for goods in a competitive market.

University of Central Florida

Location: Orlando, Florida

Enrollment: 58,698

Last but certainly not least is UFC. This institution makes the cut because of the initiates its education school has made. Future teachers have the opportunity to play STAR, an interactive classroom simulator. Students get submerged in a virtual urban middle school and must learn how to properly interact with a classroom full of students—even with those that ask obscure questions. It’s a great training course.

Of course this is only the tip of the iceberg. Certainly as technology advances the future will bring more game-based learning opportunities.

Jillian Terry is a former educator turned freelance education writer for Teachingdegree.org. Her area of expertise includes technology in the classroom and online education. She welcomes your comments and feedback.

Just this week someone mentioned how “natural” play is – all animals engage in play, and learn important adult skills through games of trial and error. However, as humans, most of us aspire to be more successful than animals, at least to have more interesting career choices and a nicer car. What differentiates how humans play from the way animals play? Clearly, informal playing can only teach so much – otherwise, there would be no elementary education system and my kids wouldn’t have as much to complain about. Kids do need guidance and input from those who know more – whether it’s an older neighbor who can explain the rules of a game you’ve never played before, to a teacher who can demonstrate knowledge you’d never find on your own.

The real question is why play has to stop when formal schooling begins – perhaps the challenge for educators is to blend their own experiences and knowledge with children’s natural ability to learn, creating a environment where sophisticated learning can arise from a playful environment where trial and error and mistakes are not only accepted, but encouraged. I’ve had adult students who cringed at the phrase “Why don’t you try it and see?” This comes from a lifetime of not being encouraged to play at school.

However, educators should be careful of using play simply as a distraction from the boredom of learning – learning should be an integral part of playing, rather than a reinforcement of the idea that learning is boring (ie “class is over – recess time! Yay!!”). Play can highlight how exciting learning can be, when it is done for a purpose and in a way that engages the learner’s interest. (“Do we HAVE to take a break now, or can we keep working on our projects?”)

One of the balancing acts we have to do when trying to make learning fun is remembering that it’s not about pandering to kids who might not feel like learning, or be in the mood for school, or just not have the patience to do the work. The game or entertainment aspect should be contributing to the learning in some way (either through creating engagement, or illustrating a situation where the learning will be relevant) but that not every kid will enjoy  learning every subject. There are certain things they will have to learn anyway.

I do believe that attention, and the ability to do something you may not be in the mood for are skills that can and should be learned in childhood – as adults, we may not be in the mood to get up for that crying child at 3 am no matter how much we love them, but it is a part of life. It’s OK to show kids that everything comes with pros and cons, and the cons are a part of life but that’s not a reason to give up. It’s hard to teach, because it’s an understanding that comes with time and maturity, but I do think it’s one of the things elementary teachers should be stressing where possible in class. And yet, not by turning classtime into torture, or “do it because I said so.”

That’s the balance. Use entertainment where appropriate, but don’t turn school into an expectation of being entertained on demand.

The first problem with utilizing play for education is defining what exactly play is. According to Spodek and Saracho (1998) there are a variety of definitions of play that have been proposed over the years. Experts debate whether play is a form of work, or something completely different. It’s been noted that the same activity can be considered work or play, depending on the context, and most activities fall somewhere in between (Spodek and Saracho, 1998). There are as many theories of play as there are definitions.

Educational play encourages learning, problem solving, and creativity (Sutton-Smith, 1998). Through play, children learn the skills of social interaction and impulse control. However, play has a long history of helping kids learn outside of the school environment (Sutton-Smith, 1998) and incorporating it into school requires separating out the various elements to figure out which ones will lead to learning in school. Unfortunately, researchers have not yet agreed on a theoretical framework for this (Bergen, 1998).

 Children create alternate realities through play (Bretherton, 1998; Porter, 1998) and acquire a sense of mastery over the world around them (Roeper, 1998). This can be literally accomplished through play using certain software programs. For example, over the past few summers I’ve taught a Digital Storytelling camp for middle schoolers where they create their own 2D and 3D worlds on the computer. Campers create characters and write stories for them, which are then animated using animation software.

Campers enjoye having control over how their stories develop, and the direction in which each character can go. Many quiet kids feel empowered watching their stories come alive, and being able to share them with friends and family. Since they work together in pairs, there is a lot of dialogue and compromise about what to do with a specific character or storyline – important social skills, especially for pre-teens. The programs we use for animation, Scratch and Alice, were designed to teach children programming concepts through storytelling. The programs are so much fun to use that students, at least my students, do not even realize that they are learning anything in order to be able to create their stories.

As in any class, I have a variety of levels of technical skills among the students. Learning the programs is easier for some than for others, but all are motivated to learn at their own levels and push themselves to solve problems that they encounter, to achieve the end goal of creating their animations. Some students create more sophisticated stories because they are able to take advantage of more features within the program, and some even discover advanced features on their own that I do not demonstrate in class. Although none of the students are particularly gifted or come in with any programming experience, they all feel comfortable exploring the limits of the programs in order to achieve their own personal goals.

References

Bergen, D. (1998). Readings from…Play as a Medium for Learning and Development. Association for

    Childhood Education International.

Because they are primarily visual, comics are appealing to younger children who might shudder at the thought of a page full of text. Also, sometimes a picture really is worth 1,000 words and illustrations can make a concept clear in much less time than text. Text and illustrations can work hand in hand where one medium extends the other; comics tend to use both media to good effect. Stories also tap into the affective, or emotional, component of learning, which is another way to add context and increase motivation (Egan, 1989).

An example of using narrative to show concepts in a relevant context is the graphic novel by Flat World Knowledge called Atlas Black: Managing to Succeed (http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/node/15264). It is a novel about a young man in business school, learning about business, and trying to apply concepts to his own life – with mixed results. It is meant to be used in business class, and shows students not only how what they are learning is relevant to business, but also to their daily lives.

The comics Constitution Construction (http://www.chestercomix.com/constitution-construction/) show the difficulties involved in creating laws for a new state and many of the complexities that are involved. This is a difficult thing to teach, but by integrating the principles into a story form and showing the progression that it might take based on the interactions between people, the comic is able to explain a difficult concept in a simple way. The illustrations show what can happen when a principle is taken to an extreme, for example when a crab is sent to prison for worshiping a crab instead of a god, and humor serves both to gain the reader’s attention and also to drive home the point – for instance, when Lockezan wants to protect his property, the tiger makes fun of him because he does not own any property other than his loincloth. This opens it up for Lockezan to talk about what the basic definition of property is and how it applies to individuals, without confusing the reader with a complicated discussion of transactions and ownership. It also keeps the discussion informal and friendly, which makes it easier for the reader to relax and therefore learn better.

References

Atlas Black: Managing to Succeed. Graphic novel published by Flat World Knowledge.     http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/node/15264

Constitution Construction, retrieved from http://www.chestercomix.com/constitution-construction/

Egan, K. (1989). Memory, Imagination, and Learning. Retrieved November 22, 2010, from     http://www.jstor.org.libproxy.boisestate.edu/sici?sici=0031-    7217%281989%2970%3A6%3C455%3AMIALCB%3E2.0.CO%3B2-    A&origin=serialsolutions&

Mallia, G. (2007) Learning from the sequence: The use of comics in instruction. ImageTexT:     Interdisciplinary Comics Studies, 3(3). Dept of English, University of Florida. Retrieved on 11     Mar 2011 from http://www.english.ufl.edu/imagetext/archives/v3_3/mallia/.

Nelson, O. (1989). Storytelling: Language Experience for Meaning Making. The Reading Teacher,     42(6), 386-390.