Games Based Learning Integrated with Traditional Exercises

There is a buzz surrounding games based learning currently.  They are many games that can be used in classrooms and for training and development.  However, they will usually be most effective when they sit alongside traditional materials.  It is unlikely that you could get all the information you need from one game (although of course it is possible).

Overview

Recently we were asked by The University of Northampton to put together a learning simulation to be delivered within the context of a Housing and Community Living Module within the Health School.  We developed Planit-Housing.  In Planit-Housing, additional workshop activities (incidents) have been fully integrated into the learning simulation.  Teams must complete exercises out of the simulation, which directly feed back into their in-game progress and score.  The quality of the delegate’s responses to the incidents (a riot or flood in the virtual community) alters multiple variables and the teams’ budgets in the simulation.  There is a seamless interaction between the two learning elements.  They offer a richer experience than either a game or traditional learning activities could have done alone.  This approach also addresses varied learning needs and styles (see ‘Games Based Learning Supports Multiple Learning Styles').  It also provides a flexible way of learning that the facilitator can control and depending on their time constraints, the activities can be divided up as the facilitator sees fit.

The Planit-Housing programme is designed to:

• Explain the complexities of the subject, including issues faced by those in different housing sectors, which will be identified and examined from a health perspective in addition to multiple sources of inequity/exclusion.
• Enable the students to improve collaborative working skills and practically explore the partnership working necessary for successful and sustainable communities.  These include developing an understanding of the big picture (strategic thinking), cause and effect (joined up thinking), communication / negotiation skills and collaborative working (the importance of partnerships). 

Integration of Learning Simulation with Traditional Exercises

Planit-Housing is the latest learning simulation from pixelfountain; the latest incarnation of our mission to integrate learning simulations with traditional exercises.  In Planit-Housing, each team’s performance in the exercises is judged for content, presentation, teamwork and understanding the wider impacts of the incident.  These values are entered easily into the learning simulation via a dashboard.  In this way multiple variables and the team’s budgets are altered.  For example, in the riot incident, a poor performance by the Housing Team could result in more destruction and reduced housing quality.  Whereas a good performance would mean the team was better prepared and so the impacts in the riot would not be as bad.  In fact, a team could generate positive outcomes for the virtual community, such as improved cohesion resulting from community clean-ups.

The learning simulation also has save functionality.  This means that time constraints needn’t be a worry.  Planit-Housing has been used by The University of Northampton over three afternoon sessions.  However, it is flexible and could be used over fewer or more sessions if desired.  It is our firm belief that the teacher/facilitator should be fully in control of the learning process and therefore flexibility built into games is an important feature.  For more information, see our Games Based Learning Analysis and Planning Tool).  The teacher/facilitator should be able to stop game play at any time to reinforce or assess learning, do a non-game activity, end the session and so on.  Many commercial games do not allow this and some purpose built games overlook this feature.

Benefits of the approach

• Flexibility – the approach allows the simulation workshop to incorporate any sort of activity to achieve a specific learning outcome.
• Extension – the learning simulation can be extended to incorporate sophisticated workshop exercises and additional learning components, which can be interweaved into the game play.
• No additional development - whatever the exercise, the trainees can be judged using standard metrics.
• Engagement – the exercises break up the game play and the simulation brings added weight to the traditional workshop exercise.
• Supports multiple learning styles – exercises / learning components can be designed to suit all learning styles and together they work in a single meta exercise or learning piece.
• Supports active learning – real world activities can be incorporated into the learning process. 

What Next

pixelfountain is always looking to innovate and improve.  The next steps for this type of learning could include a more sophisticated dashboard which would enable the trainer / facilitator to:

• Trigger any number of incidents as and when they want them to occur in the workshop programme.
• Integrate incidents without the need for additional bespoke coding.  Specific algorithm variables could be selected in terms of the impact of a newly devised incident.  The trainer could determine the level of impact for each variable and how the workshop activity relates to the variables.

A core simulation could then incorporate incidents without the need to involve a development team.

Other Examples

Grandma’s Games:  Grandma’s Games have won awards for their innovative learning programmes, which make use of traditional games (mostly from Macedonia), such as hopscotch and Cat’s Cradle.  They use these games along with technology to teach areas within and beyond the curriculum.  For example, a game called Chelik (steel) has the following learning outcomes:

“To learn the linear measures, cm (centimeter) dm (decimeter) and m (meter); to be able to compare linear measures by free judgment; to make linear measure instruments, rulers and tape measures with the use of computers; to draw in Paint and to print rulers and tape measures glued on a piece of paper; to define homonyms (same words with different meanings); evergreen and deciduous trees; to explore pictures using Bing, memorize and insert them in a Power Point presentation.”

For more information and resources visit: http://www.grandmasgames.org/Visitor/Games.aspx.

SimCityEDU: As I am sure many of you are aware, the latest incarnation of SimCity will be released early next month.   However, what you might not know is that SimCityEDU has also been developed by a partnership between Electronic Arts, Inc. (EA) and GlassLab (a research and development initiative aimed at transforming learning practices through digital games). Educators can use SimCityEDU in the classroom to teach students STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects alongside traditional methods.  The website (which goes live in March 2013) reads:

“Engage your students by using the SimCity game to make learning come alive! Create and share SimCity-based learning tools that address a wide range of subjects including science, math, civics, economics, and more.”

Please follow @paulladley on Twitter and like games-ED’s Pinterest, Facebook and Google+ pages for blog updates and interesting games based learning links and resources.

Five Things to Think About When Using Games in the Classroom

Games are receiving a lot of attention as educational resources. Games based learning educates while engaging and motivating students.

Before you grab a Wii remote or zoom off the line in the latest racing simulation; think about your strategy:

1. What are the learning outcomes you are trying to achieve?
  a. If the session is about excitement and engagement then most games are going to work.
  b. If you want to achieve group working, then you will need to hunt out party and collaborative games.
  c. If you have a specific subject knowledge requirement, then commercial entertainment games might have limited use. You need to embark on a quest for dedicated games based learning.
2. How will you ensure that learning takes place?
  a. If the game does not have natural break points, you will need to create them, so learning can be reinforced.
  b. What more can you do pre and post gaming?
3. What kit and environment will you need?
  a. Console or existing computer? The former is going to cost and, if it is the latter, will the class need to decamp to the IT suite because the game is played individually or needs a powerful computer?
  b. Will your current classroom cope? Console games that make use of motion peripherals need enough space to swing the proverbial cat rather than move a mouse on its mat.
4. Will there be a level playing field?
  a. “Pro” gamers might dominate proceedings, particularly if they have expertise in a particular game or console.
  b. Can the game be played in a way where different players can take on different roles, so that they all have a chance to use their unique talents?
5. Is the game too complex? The game needs to be quickly understood.
  a. If you are going to use complex commercial entertainment games, then consider setting up a part played scenario with a specific goal.
  b. Party games which are prevalent on the Wii are quick to learn, yet might be lacking in learning content.
  c. Purpose built games based learning ought not to suffer this problem, but make sure you ask the supplier.

Games are powerful learning tools, and at games-ED we have seen their benefits on many occasions, but like any other method of teaching they need to be carefully integrated into the classroom in order to achieve the desired results.  Above are just some of the points we consider when designing games based learning.  We will revisit this topic soon.

If you want to find out more on games based learning in the classroom go to the games-ED website to see some recent case studies (Mellor Primary School and Central Foundation Girls School).  Also, have a look at this recent article from the BBC.

Is Game Based Learning More Effective Than Traditional Methods?

Games based learning research tends to compare apples with oranges (as stated in a previous blog). It seems inappropriate to lump a pilot / modded game, entertainment game, purpose built game into one category and compare to traditional teaching methods. The purpose built game ought to (although there is no guarantee) have better educational value, else it mustn't have been designed very well.

Even if that was deemed appropriate to lump together games of varying "educational value", the games fracture into many genres (simulation, action, puzzle and so on). So to use a film analogy, it would be like saying Gone with the Wind is not as escapist as Harry Potter. Game genres work in different ways, so their effect in education will vary. Education, itself, can be sliced and diced in terms of subject and age. Also, there are some games (such as multi player simulations) that offer up possibilities that are not easily achievable in traditional teaching.

Furthermore, games based learning and traditional methods don't have to be mutually exclusive. A blended approach can run across lessons, or the game can be played as a whole class exercise with the educator still providing scaffolding.

Our experience:

pixelfountain (www.pixelfountain.co.uk) has been developing learning simulations for nine years. Our simulations run in workshop settings with different sub-teams taking on different roles in the simulation. We have delivered around 450 workshops for around 6,000 delegates. We have delivered around 40 lessons in schools, colleges and universities. We have even developed online games with young people. Our education products are marketed under the brand games-ED (www.games-ed.co.uk).

We have "happy sheets" for all of these workshops and have done long-term evaluation on some of the larger projects. The delegates are asked for quantitative and qualitative feedback. Arguably, the feedback is unscientific; given there was no control group. Also, the evaluation was solicited for product / project improvement reasons for ourselves and project funders.

Delegates typically suggest they have achieved a 20% – 25% learning improvement across a number of areas. They judge the workshops at 8.5 to 9 out of 10. Although, I would say younger learners are harder to please.

Typical comments form education workshops:

“After playing the game, I now appreciate the simple things that government does.” – Pupil, Liverpool Schools Parliament.

“When I put together an induction week programme there was always a compromise between introducing the key concepts of the course and encouraging the students to communicate with each other and staff.  [Sustainaville] allows me to achieve both these goals in a very entertaining way.  It always amazes me that after a single day I can introduce most of the concepts of Urban Sustainable Development and they also know each other’s names as well!” - Course Leader, Sheffield Hallam University.

“The students thoroughly enjoyed the project and could confidently talk about what they had been doing and talk through their ideas. They have gained fantastic skills!” - Teacher from Mill Green Special School, Newton le Willows

Conclusion

Does the above prove that games based learning is better than traditional methods? Probably not. But then that is not the point. We solicited feedback, because we wanted to improve our products and how they were delivered. So maybe the original question could be reframed into, “how can we improve games based leaning products and how they are delivered?” This is how games based learning will succeed in the education market place. They will succeed by delivering what educators need and what learners like.

In some ways it is a bit like sports commentary. Listen to how the commentators often change their slant on the game after a goal has been scored. So maybe, once games based learning success has been commercially achieved, the research will prove why it happened. Until then the games based learning market, like any other, will rely on the early adopters and the innovators.