The Criteria for Selecting and Using a Game for Learning
Play + Games + Educational Content = Learning!
Mixing Excitement with a Purpose
According to educational thought leader Jordan Shapiro (2014), “The best learning games teach in the same way good teachers teach: They don’t trick students into being interested, they help students find genuine excitement in learning a subject” (p. 20). When finding a potential learning game, educators and parents must always begin with the end in mind – what do you want the players to learn? For parents, they must consider if the game is helping to teach or reinforce learning. For educators, this process involves consulting with their various curriculum guides or academic standards. From the standards, educators create a learning objective for their students and identify the tools and resources essential to help their students achieve these goals. Next, educators consider what instructional and assessment strategies to employ to reach all learners.
Planning Backwards
For educators, one of the easiest ways to prepare for a game-based learning activity is to find a game first, then plan the learning events around its game play. Planning backwards such as this may seem nonsensical to educators, but the simple fact is that a lot of digital games were not constructed with the purpose of being used in a classroom during a lesson. Educators using game-based learning must consider what they are teaching to students and find a game that aligns with the desired learning outcomes.
Teaching or Testing?
The next consideration for evaluating and ultimately using a digital game for learning is to identify if the game is a teaching game, testing game, or both. Karl Kapp, an instructional technology professor at Bloomsburg University said “Testing Games are games where the learner already needs to know the information to be successful. The focus of the game is not to apply knowledge but rather to recall knowledge . . . If you want to test knowledge, testing games are fine but do not expect learning to occur” (Kapp, 2013). The second type is teaching games: “Teaching games, on the other hand, do not test knowledge; they impart knowledge. This is accomplished through a series of activities within the game that teaches the learner what he or she needs to do” (Kapp, 2013).
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As digital games continue to evolve, these two classifications of testing and teaching games begin to merge, because more and more games are becoming both—they first teach the learner, and then they test or assess the learner’s understanding of the content or skills the player learns or develops.
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These game classifications become invaluable for educators considering the use of a digital game during the learning process. Educators must select a teaching game to teach their students and a testing game to assess or reinforce previously learned information. Educators must conduct extensive searches for games that align with their student’s learning goals. It is important to consider how the game will be used during the learning process.
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More and more learning game developers understand that games must both teach and test its players. This is why they are starting to create more games that are classified as both – teaching and testing.