That escalated quickly! My post on using Fortnite in the Classroom became my most popular article ever. I was also lucky enough to be asked to chime in on EdWeek’s article on Fortnite and video games in the classroom. Through all this, I received dozens of emails, mostly positive, with many readers asking how they can get started integrating video games into their classroom. I’ve been integrating video games into my classroom for the last six years and I’ve come up with some best practices I’m happy to share.
Getting Started
The two major ways gaming is used in the classroom often get confused. Using actual games to teach concepts and assess student learning is called game-based learning. The hashtags #GBL and #games4ed are used on social media to curate this content. GBL is the subject of this post. The second major way gaming is used in the classroom is called Gamification. Gamification is when you use video game mechanics to motivate, engage, and empower students. If you are gamifying, you are not using games in the classroom, but are using game mechanics like xp grading, leaderboards, item shops, narratives, and other game mechanics to hook kids. You can read about the Gamification system I developed in my Gamification Guide or checkout the category tag on this site. Beyond Gamification and Game-Based Learning there are a host of other nuanced versions of games in the classroom like Serious Games, Big Games, Live-Action and Simulation Games, Augmented Reality Games, and Alternate Reality Games. Be warned: the deeper you go down the games-in-the-classroom rabbit hole, you’ll find that most experts have their own opinion of what games-in-the-classroom should look like and often can’t agree on best practices. I’m no different, as you’ll see in the next paragraph, but I think knowing the difference between Game-Based Learning and Gamification should be enough to get you started and help you find further research on the topic if you’re interested.
What Types Of Games Can Be Used
If you use browser-based games like Cool Math Games or Sumdog, you are using game-based learning. If you are using assessments like Kahoot or Quizizz, you are using game-based learning. While both are types of game-based learning, I believe them to be the least effective forms of GBL. They aren’t my cup of tea. If browser-based games have been working for you, great! I prefer to guide students through a gaming experience rather than use a browser-based game or assessment. The bulk of this article will focus on using AAA games in the classroom: the games played at home, with big budgets, that aren’t necessarily made with classroom in mind (though that is starting to change).
I like to use the AAA games that my students play at home because I find they have more fun and I’m better at creating lessons through those types of games. With that, it is important to acknowledge that there is an equity issue around getting those types of video games in the classroom. I need to have a PC, often with some decent power, to play the AAA games like Minecraft: Education Edition, Cities: Skylines, and Offworld Trading Company, all of which I’m currently using. I’m lucky to work in a district that I have access to these tools. In my old district, I allowed students to bring their own devices to school. Students would team up to complete the tasks together in the game using the same devices they used at home.
If none of that is possible, you can still use game-based learning in the classroom by having students create their own games. Whether digitally, on free programs like Scratch, or with low/no-tech board games, having students make their own games is an awesome experience and one of my favorite assessments. Make time for students to play each others games as well. I wrote in more detail on using student-made games here.
Using The Game Without Using The Game
You can also use GBL without using the games themselves. Let’s say you want to tap into a student’s love for a game that may not think is school appropriate, like Fortnite. You can work the game into what you are already doing without actually playing the game. In my Surviving Fortnite article, I shared how Fortnite is played on a 10 x 10 grid, 100 square map, with 100 players. Each square on a Fortnite map is 250m x 250m, making the map 2500m x 2500m. It takes 45 seconds to run across a single square horizontally and vertically and 64 seconds to run across a single square diagonally. How many math problems could you make around that information? Even if you can’t or don’t want to use Fortnite in the classroom, by knowing the game’s mechanics you can incorporate aspects of the game to the content you’re already teaching. If your not sure about how a game works, do some research and ask your students. I’m sure together you can create content around their favorite games.
Managing The GBL Classroom
Should you choose to use AAA game-based learning in the classroom, it is important that you know some best practices. Video games should never be the only way a student can learn or be assessed on a topic. While growing research shows that video games can be a great way to teach concepts and assess students, I’m not comfortable making it the only way yet. Game-based learning should be an option; one of many. Have students show what they’ve learned not just with games, but in a variety of ways that let them share their passions. Having alternatives is also a way to help keep control while using the game. If students misbehave while in the game, give them a chance to get back on track by making sure they know using a game is a privilege and they’ll be moved to an alternate activity if they can’t control themselves.
Further, a phrase I always use with students is “how you play this game at home is not how you learn with it in school.” Students are never ‘playing’ games in my class. They are learning or showing what they’ve learned using a game. The activity has clearly defined learning objectives, goals, and outcomes students are expected to achieve. An important thing to do, however, is give students time to run around in the game, play, and get over the fact that their using a favorite game in the classroom. Never expect a student to use a game ‘the right way’ the first time they play it in your class. Let them get the wiggles out. After, that they should be ready to go…
But maybe they’re not. What if they don’t know how to play? Games are great teachers. Games will onboard students quickly as to how the mechanics works, so don’t worry about a student not getting how to play. Students who don’t know how to play will learn in that opening free time you give them and while they complete the lesson. If you need help instructing students on how to play the game or need something to do with expert students who finish quickly, use them as experts to teach and assist other students. But use the expert rule! My kids know anytime they’re teaching someone else how to do something, they must keep their hands behind their back and use their words to help that person.
What if you don’t know how to play? When I first started using Minecraft at Fair Haven, I had no idea how to play. I went down to 4th grade recess, on a rainy day, and asked them to teach me. They couldn’t have been more excited. Those same experts who help students will be happy to help you learn how to play the game, too.
I love to position game-based learning at the end of a unit or as a culminating activity. This helps act as an incentive to keep students motivated and on task throughout the other learning activities. Use it as leverage as you feel appropriate.
The last thing to know is that using game-based learning presents a bunch of opportunities to talk about digital citizenship and skill development like impulse control and delaying gratification. Be ready to seize those teachable moments.
What To Teach
I’ve used game-based learning to teach and assess many different elements of literature when I was an English teacher. Now, I use games to help students understand design and to get them use to the type of problem and project-based learning they’ll be doing in Fair Haven Innovates. I’ve helped other teachers in Math, Science, History, and beyond get game-based learning up and running their classroom and I could go on about all the different activities we came up with, but instead I’ll do three things. 1) Advise you to check out Edutopia’s great game-based learning articles especially this one by Matt Faber on ways to integrate games in your classroom 2) check out the Games For Change movement and 3) implore you to listen and talk to your students about what they are playing so you can look into those games and find ways to combine your content with their passion.
Until Next Time,
GLHF