by remixrunixlp
I've been in education for nearly twenty years. Early in my career, I firmly believed that I could use commercial video games to teach key concepts in my classes. At the time I was a math and science teacher.
Fast forward two decades and I have used a veritable smorgasbord of games to teach a wide range of concepts to students. Some of the games proved more usable than others and I definitely learned the hard way that some games did not have the flexibility I needed from them to allow for all of my learners - some of whom were not gamers - to interact with the game at a high enough level to accomplish my learning goals. But I persevered, and found the following list of games to work (sometimes shockingly) well.
Why video games? I genuinely believe that some of the best video game designers are excellent educators, teaching players through gameplay how to improve their skills and then testing that skills growth with increasingly difficult scenarios. In other words, giving lessons, quizzes, and tests with relatively low failure penalties and inviting players to consistently improve. It's what we teachers are aiming for every day. Video games are also immersive experiential learning opportunities.
Why commercial video games? Because today's edutainment games suck and kids know it. That's an oversimplification of the issue, but if I were to poll my students on why they prefer the games I use versus their other teachers, that's effectively the sentiment shared. Sure, games like Prodigy incorporate interesting ideas from well designed RPGs, at the end of the day the game is going to come to a grinding halt when you can't answer a question about a reading passage. Fun is an essential element of learning, and these types of games are trying to shoehorn in the fun. Commercial games start from a perspective of being fun. That's a major difference.
I won't be able to write this full list in one sitting, so I'll be updating it as I feel. if you think of any games that would rock in a classroom setting, let me know!
And yes, I am aware that Minecraft exists :D
Showing 1-10 of 14 items
Class: High School Physics
Topic: Kinematics; Kinetic and Potential Energy
My entire unit on kinematics grew to heavily feature RTC 3 'labs'. This is because the game provides an easy environment in which students can experiment with speeds, heights, and to a lesser extent mass to observe how motion changes due to energy transfer. Students used Google Sheets to build mathematical models of rollercoasters and compared those results against the data provided by the game about a ride they built.
Class: Geometry
Topic: Introduction to Mathematical Logic and Proofs
Everyone has PTSD over having to write proofs or truth tables in their Geometry class (or almost everyone... this particular sicko always got a kick out of them). In an effort to tear down the 'dread barrier' students would build up over having to do both of these things, I created a series of activities to teach students the basics of logic principles using a game that purposefully defied traditional logic with its puzzles.
Class: High School Physics
Topic: Projectile Motion; Kinematics; Gravitational Acceleration
Fairly obvious application here. The gameplay - especially early on - made it hard for a lot of my students to build successful rockets that could achieve orbit. However, experimenting with the game revealed a lot of misconceptions students had about gravity and spaceflight. One that has always stuck with me is how confused students were that their rockets decelerated continuously as they approached the Moon's gravity well - they didn't fully comprehend the dent in space caused by Earth despite being very far from it.
Class: Middle School Life Science
Topic: Epidemiology
In my defense, we used this game well before COVID... though, after they patched in the COVID mission we gently reintroduced it into the curriculum. In many middle school curricula, the topic of disease transfer vectors is often taught with small games involving notecards in the classroom. They don't really convey the scale or diversity of how these sorts of things can spread - let alone how they can be combatted. Plague Inc does a phenomenal job of simulating both.
Class: Various
Topic: Field Trips
Field trips often fail because the students are not held accountable for fully capitalizing on the opportunities to learn. You see it all the time - kids blowing past exhibits, ignoring docents or volunteers, and sneaking off to the nearest communal space to wait out the rest of the experience. Lots of teachers have tried to combat this issue to varying degrees of success. My attempt was to use Pokemon Go and encourage the students to visit all of the Poke Stops on the trip - with the understand that they had to then discover ## of new facts at each Poke Stop which they would then share when we returned to class. I think the idea had a lot of merit to it, but ultimately the game started to get in the way of things... especially if a rare pokemon popped up or if a battle of Gym control hijacked student attention. Still, I was more pleased with the extend to which students retained - and gained - knowledge from our trips when I used this trick, especially when on a trip that featured a decent amount of walking between historic sites.
Class: Middle School Health
Topic: Empathy
One of several games that I've used to help students learn to appreciate the experiences and emotions of others. That Dragon Cancer is an emotional journey through the real lives of parents who suffer the loss of a child due to cancer. The closing of the game served as a project prompt. At the end, players get to read and see letters/cards from real-life folks who have also lost loved ones or who offered support to the developers as they navigated their loss. We invited students to also write letters and share them with each other.
Class: Middle School Health
Topic: Empathy
One of several games that I've used to help students learn to appreciate the experiences and emotions of others. Gone Home allowed for us to gently introduce to students the ways in which their identity develops and can run contrary to the expectations of their community or family. We used the game to introduce a project where students had to imagine someone else discovering their home abandoned - what items would they find? And what stories would their infer from those items?
Class: Ancient World History
Topic: Ancient Egypt
Okay. I know a game about repeatedly stabbing people in increasingly gruesome ways isn't exactly tailor-made for middle school students. Thankfully, for a wonderful stretch of titles Ubisoft has created the "Discovery Tour" mode. The delightfully curated journey through the art, history, and mythology of Ancient Egypt kept students engaged at a far higher level than any lecture of video we could have used. Students felt as if they were discovering the ancient world.
Class: Ancient World History
Topic: Ancient Greece
Okay. I know a game about repeatedly stabbing people in increasingly gruesome ways isn't exactly tailor-made for middle school students. Thankfully, for a wonderful stretch of titles Ubisoft has created the "Discovery Tour" mode. The delightfully curated journey through the art, history, and mythology of Ancient Greece kept students engaged at a far higher level than any lecture of video we could have used. Students felt as if they were discovering the ancient world
Class: Biology
Topic: Genetics, Heredity, and Punnett Squares
I happened upon a video in which Brad Muir, I believe at GDC, shared how the Double Fine team handled their bloodline system for Massive Chalice. That got me thinking about ways to use the system to expose students to how genetic affect inherited attributes. Students used Punnett Squares to attempt to predict how royal offspring would develop over time. The difficulty of using this game in class is obvious - you can't skip the battles! This was a frustrating issue that ultimately led to our no longer using the game. But I still think there's potential there!