How to Bring Gamification to the Classroom: Best Practices

Recently, I was privileged enough to be asked to guest post at gamifeye.com.  I wrote them a post about gamifying the classroom.  This phrase can be understood in several ways.  First, games based learning is a hot topic right now and teachers are wanting to bring games into their classrooms.  Secondly, teachers want to gamify the classroom in itself, in terms of monitoring progress and behaviour and so on.  I offer lots of ways that teachers might go about easily bringing gamification into the classroom; the best practices.  Click this link to read the whole post.

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Adult Games Based Learning and sim-uni

I thought I’d talk about something a little different this week.  In general, our blog posts talk about how games based learning can be used in schools to teach children a whole host of things.  However, obviously games based learning is not limited to children.  The benefits of games based learning that we have discussed in the past (motivation, meeting the needs of different types of learners, collaboration and so on) are just as true and relevant for adult learners.

According to the Entertainment Software Association: 

• The average gamer is 37 years old and has been playing for 12 years.
• Eighty-two percent of gamers are 18 years or older.
• Today, adult women represent a greater portion of the game-playing population (37 percent) than boys age 17 or younger (13 percent).
• Twenty-nine percent of game players are over the age of 50, an increase from 9 percent in 1999.

As adults seemingly have so much experience of games and play them so frequently in their recreation time, why can they not be trained using games?  Games based learning is for everyone, not just the youngest portion of society.  People like learning through games because it is fun; you don’t stop wanting things to be fun when you reach a certain age!  Pike’s Five Laws of Adult Learning say that learning is directly proportional to the amount of fun you have.  This is partly because the more fun you’re having, the more relaxed you are and the more open you are to the learning process.  For more information, visit this website.

This blog is brought to you (as you can see on the right) by games-ED.  games-ED produces games based learning (learning simulations) specifically for the education market (from people of primary school age up to university age).  However, the parent company, pixelfountain, designs, develops and delivers learning simulations (games based learning) to adult learners.  Therefore, we have a pretty strong background in this arena.

The following table measures our pixelfountain learning simulations against Pike’s Five Laws of Adult Learning.  This also can be applied to learning simulations (and games based learning) more generally.

Pike’s Law	Learning Simulations
Law 1: Adults are babies with big bodies	Learning simulations are games that allow delegates to learn quickly, on a relevant exercise, without the pressure of the day job.
Law 2: People do not argue with their own data	Learning simulations based workshops allow delegates to construct their understanding.  The workshop is not about telling people what to do; instead it is showing them what they could do.
Law 3: Learning is directly proportional to the amount of fun you are having	Learning simulations (serious games) are fun.  We pride ourselves on the fact that people leave our workshops with a smile.  But, the real proof of the pudding is that we have  had individuals do the same simulation a number of times!
Law 4: Learning has not taken place until behaviour has changed	Learning simulations accelerate understanding and shift thinking.  Long-term evaluation of our programmes shows that learning outcomes have been sustained and changes incorporated.  Follow on work, in the organisation, enables the delegates to take the learning forward.

One journal article that I have come across gives a good summary of some of the themes that occur across the research on games based learning (Foster and Mishra, 2009).  The reported effects of games are split into several sections:

• Physiological – such as coordination and motor skills but also aggressiveness and obesity
• Practical skills – innovation / creativity, data handling and technical literacy etc
• Cognitive skills – systemic thinking, critical thinking and memorising etc
• Social skills – collaboration, interpersonal skills and informed citizenry etc
• Motivation – confidence, immediate feedback and exploration etc

The reported positive effects of games definitely outweigh the negatives. There are many positive examples of how games can be used in training and development programmes to teach and develop specific skills and expertise. For example, IBMs Innov8 is a serious game that explains business process management to non-technical people.   However, training games also have wider benefits, which is one of the reasons they work so well.

For these reasons, we continue to be active in this market.  pixelfountain’s latest learning simulation, sim-uni, has just recently been piloted with our partners, The University of Manchester’s Staff Training and Development Unit, at their institution.  The learning simulation is used to train staff across the university, to reduce silo thinking and understand that collaborating across functions can benefit the university much more than working alone.  The pilot was a great success and a short case study of the day can be found here: http://www.sim-uni.co.uk/case-study.html.

This is what Paul Dixon, head of the University’s Staff Training and Development Unit had to say: “The University of Manchester were attracted to working with pixelfountain on their particular style of business simulation as it doesn’t become an exercise in mastering the technology or reducing the learning experience to all huddling around a PC. Instead sim-uni facilitates a rich experiential learning experience and can be used flexibly to achieve a variety of learning outcomes as dictated by the user – be it planning and strategy appreciation, team work and communications or decision making. Our early experience of sim-uni suggests it can be used effectively as a learning vehicle in its own right or as an adjunct to leadership and management development programmes.”

For more information about sim-uni visit our website or download our flier.  You can also follow us on Twitter: @sim_uni.  If you want to learn more about pixelfountain and our portfolio of products, visit: www.pixelfountain.co.uk.

And as ever, please follow @paulladley on Twitter, games-ED on Pinterest and like games-ED’s Facebook and Google+ pages for blog updates and other interesting games based learning things.

21st Century Skills and Games Based Learning

This TED talk from Dr. Richard Van Eck brings up some very interesting points.  I would greatly recommend watching the video, but as it is 20 minutes long and not everyone will have the time, I will summarise the main points here for you.  If you have watched the video, please feel free to ignore the summary, just skip to the black text later on.

• Why raise test scores when they don’t measure what we need them to in the 21st century?
• If we really cared about learning, we would individualise it to each student – not ready to do this.
• There are two main modes of change / reform:

1. Changing because if we don’t adapt, we can’t survive.
2. Disruptive technologies – new technology that solves problems that we face but in a way that forces us to change our behaviour.

• The Industrial Revolution changed the education system to produce workers.  Children were all taught the same things, in the same place, at the same time.  We now live in an ‘information age’ where ideas are the new commodities.  
• Situated cognition - if you are going to teach someone something, you should teach them in the environment that they will use the knowledge – learn by doing.  This promotes faster learning, better retention of knowledge and the transference of knowledge to the real world.  Games allow this.
• Games promote systems thinking – currently education teaches discrete facts, not connections and systems.
• Games promote collaboration – social negotiation of skills, collective intelligence, collective problem-solving all prevalent in games.
• Games promote problem-solving.  The problems presented require new knowledge to be generated to solve it.  There is a value for the learner in solving the problem.  Schools sometimes get the first aspect but usually try and persuade children to “just do it, trust me it will be important later.”
• Games produce engagement (engagement is not about fun or motivation but cognitive effort).  The challenge should be optimal – too hard and they’ll quit, too easy and they won’t want to play.  Zone of proximal development: some things so easy we don’t need help to do them, some things too difficult no matter how much help, some things where the challenge is ‘just right’.  This is where all the best learning occurs as it keeps people operating at the maximum of their ability.  This is what games do – can choose difficulty at start and can’t move on until mastered initial skills.  
• But, games are disruptive technologies and this has practical consequences.  Games will require fundamental shifts in the education system.
• Current tests don’t measure 21st century skills and tests might not be able to ever measure these skills.
• Collaboration vs. cheating – how will we adapt to these new ideas?
• Individualised instruction – currently we fit education to the lowest common denominator, which means that some children are not optimally challenged.  If we individualised learning, some children would take 2 months to complete the curriculum and some, 2 years.  Practical and financial consequences.
• If we bring in games, we will have to adopt everything that comes with them.  Disruptive technologies by definition, destroy things; revolutions are messy.  
• Games may not save the education system, they may destroy it and this might be exactly what is needed.

Dr. Richard Van Eck makes some great points, I completely agree that our current education system is somewhat ignoring these 21st century skills.  I also agree that the education system needs a revolution.  However, I thank that games can be integrated into our current education system very easily and this could produce change for the better now.  People, on the whole, are scared of change and the idea of a revolution, whilst headline grabbing, might not be feasible.  I am not sure if he meant it to come across in this way, but it seems that Dr. Van Eck is arguing that there is an either / or choice to be made: either we stay the same or we have a revolution.  I think there could be some middle ground.

What exactly are 21st century skills?  This is another good article, which lists the essential competencies for a student in the Information Age:

• Ways of thinking - Creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making and learning.
• Ways of working - Communication and collaboration.
• Tools for working - Information and communications technology (ICT) and information literacy.
• Skills for living in the world - Citizenship, life and career, and personal and social responsibility.

In a dynamic and competitive knowledge economy, innovation, creativity and problem solving are everything.  We exist in a world dominated by the likes of Apple and Google.  For these firms to survive, they must innovate.  They require a workforce of creative critical thinkers.  Furthermore, to survive in this economy and obtain employment, these are the skills that students need to be learning too.  Games are a great way of encouraging the development of these skills.  Succeeding in playing a game often requires problem solving, critical thinking and most definitely decision making.  These skills can be practiced in a safe environment.  For example, puzzle games such as Portal require explicit problem solving involving physics.  However, all games involve some form of thinking skills such as these.  How do I fulfil my Sim’s life ambition?  How can I make my theme park more popular?  How can I make my town more sustainable (an example of our learning simulation, Sustainaville)?

Communication and collaboration are also extremely important.  On a purely practical level, flatter organisational hierarchies require good communication skills.  This is common in a knowledge economy.  Further than this, the most successful companies have realised that their workforce are their best resources.  They have also found that collaboration can encourage innovation and so on.  For example, Google have special areas of their offices specifically designed to stimulate ‘spontaneous’ communication and collaboration with people that they wouldn’t usually come into contact with.  They also have small collaboration zones such as yurts and huddle rooms.

Image from Marcin Wichary on Flickr.

Games can encourage collaboration in different ways.  First, multiplayer games can obviously provoke communication and collaboration.  For example, players in games such as World of Warcraft, Halo, Portal and so on need to work together to succeed in their mission / level.  In our games-ED learning simulations, players make up sub-teams that need to work together to achieve the overall outcomes of the whole group.  The sub-teams are in control of one sector / building e.g. local council, health sector, private sector which must work together to improve the virtual community that they have been put in charge of.  

Single player games can also encourage communication such as “Guess what I did on Fifa last night?” or “Have you been on this quest in Skyrim?”  However, they can also encourage collaboration such as “How did you do that pass / goal celebration?” or “How did you defeat that boss / find that item?”  While talking about communication and collaboration, I’d just like to bring your attention to this Swedish classroomless school.  This innovative new school in Sweden has no classrooms, focuses on 21st century skills and children are split into grades based on their level rather than age.  One of their main priorities is the promotion of collaboration along with all the other 21st Century skills mentioned.  Is this the school of the future?  For more information on communication and collaboration see ‘The Art of Conversation’.

It goes without saying that IT skills should be encouraged through the use of IT based games.  However, what about the final bullet point above: skills for living in the world?  These benefits might not come about from all games.  However, they will in many.  For example, semi-realistic life and career skills are simulated in The Sims.  You must manage your sim’s life, made up of physical needs, social life, love life, career, family life and so on.  Other games such as Second Life and World of Warcraft have pretty strict rules about social etiquette and citizenship.

Our games-ED learning simulations are designed to educate learners about some of these areas.  For example, The Climate Game teaches students about climate change and environmental responsibility and Young People First teaches students about young people’s issues such as teen pregnancy, worklessness and anti-social behaviour.  For more information on how game-ED aims to encourage these 21st Century (or Personal Learning & Thinking) skills click here.

To conclude, these skills are needed in the 21st Century.  Needed by job seekers, employers, organisations and our future leaders.  In my experience, these are the skills that people are after (employers often just require you to have a degree, not a degree in a specific area) more than the knowledge of facts and figures.  Some specific knowledge is needed sometimes, such as medicine and law.  However, in many fields, knowledge needs to be gained on the job anyway.  Why then, is so much emphasis placed on this type of knowledge in education when it will be forgotten?  Why not put more emphasis on 21st Century skills?

Further Viewing
If you have the time, you might want to watch this video from Dr. Tony Wagner about what he calls, the ‘global achievement gap’ (the gap between what is being taught and what is needed to be taught in the 21st century).

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

InformED

One of our readers has pointed me in the direction of a great website: informED!  It is full of fantastic features about education and learning and is well worth a look.  I have picked out a couple of their posts that are of particular interest to me below, but there are loads more.

‘15 Ways to Engage Students and Prevent Online Drop-outs’ by Miriam Clifford.  This post offers tips to engage students and prevent drop-outs including: plan interactive exercises, [use] different types of technologies and develop a ‘collaborative code of conduct’.  It is easy to see then, how games based learning could help, in these ways, to increase engagement and reduce drop-out rates.

‘Educational Psychology: 20 things Educators need to know about how Students Learn’ by Andrianes Pinantoan.  This feature relates to my recent blog post, ‘Games Based Learning Supports Multiple Learning Styles’.  It explains that there are seven learning styles:

1. Visual: Using sight
2. Auditory: Using songs or rhythms
3. Verbal: Speaking out loud the information
4. Kinesthetic: Using touch and taste to explore the information
5. Logical: A more mathematical approach to concepts
6. Interpersonal: Learning in groups
7. Intrapersonal: Learning alone

The article then gives comprehensive advice on how to use this knowledge to encourage successful learning.  It also covers other tips such as using technology and creating space.

‘How to Ignite Passion in your Students: 8 Ways Educators can Foster Passion-based Learning’ by Miriam Clifford.  This great post gives lots of ways to encourage passion and engagement from learners including: allow time for collaboration and allow time for play.  Again, it is easy to see how games based learning can foster this passion-based learning when incorporated with the other strategies.

The site also talks about trends in the education industry.  This is very interesting and gives some more insight into the future of education (adding to my blog post: ‘The Future of Learning Technologies’.

The site is definitely worth a look.  I always appreciate hearing about these fantastic websites and new products, so please do let me know if you have found anything particularly inspiring.  And as always please follow @paulladley on Twitter, games-ED on Pinterest and like games-ED’s Facebook and Google+ pages for blog updates and anything inspiring I find that I want to share with you.

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Outstanding Lessons and Games Based Learning

For anyone who doesn't know, or who doesn't live in the UK, ‘Ofsted’ stands for The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills.  They essentially inspect schools (and other children’s services) and grade them based on various criteria.  This has a considerable effect on the school’s reputation.

The top ‘grade’ you can achieve through Ofsted is outstanding and teachers and schools all over the UK are striving to achieve ‘outstanding lessons’.  But what does this mean exactly?  How can games based learning help more lessons to be outstanding?

Outstanding lessons will obviously vary greatly depending on the lesson being taught.  However, what is common to achieving this standard is the quality of teaching and learning.  Ofsted say that outstanding teaching includes “a focus on pupils making exceptional progress as a result of inspiring teaching, from teachers having excellent subject knowledge and the innovative use of new technology” (information from http://www.teachingexpertise.com/articles/outstanding-lesson-11943).

In other words, one of Ofsted’s main criteria for outstanding lessons is the innovative use of new technologies.  This, in itself, would be a good reason to use games in lessons.  However, if we look at the criteria more closely, we can see how games based learning can tick more than one box.

Outstanding teachers must fulfil the following criteria:

• Subject expertise and flair
• The involvement of every pupil in the learning process
• Intelligent questioning involving every pupil
• The use of a wide variety of resources as appropriate including new technology
• Involving pupils in the learning process and developing independent learning.

For me, it goes without saying that teachers should have a reasonable level of subject expertise.  However, subject flair is a little more interesting and perhaps more difficult to prove.  One cannot impose passion for a subject on teachers but a good way to exhibit it may be to use a related game in lessons.  Being up-to-date on goings on in their field and finding new ways to instil knowledge that they find interesting is impressive and games exhibit this.

Good learning games should also involve every pupil in the learning process.  Games can tap into multiple learning styles (‘Games Based Learning Supports Multiple Learning Styles’) meaning that all children should be able to access the learning at some level.  Collaboration is also a great benefit of learning games.  Although some technology limits the amount of players, the ideal situation is for all pupils to be learning collaboratively from one game (see the pedagogy page of our corporate website).

The next criterion is intelligent questioning involving every pupil.  In my blog post ‘Unorthodox Uses of Games in Education’, I talked about a teacher using Angry Birds to teach his pupils.  Pupils built catapults to launch real life angry birds and all the while the teacher asked them questions about the physics behind what they were doing.  This can also be done with computer based learning games.

The final criterion involves developing independent learning.  This is really about motivating and inspiring pupils.  It is unlikely that children will become enthused about a topic if the lesson is uninspiring and involves a dull presentation with written exercises to follow.  This is the bulk of most education.  Children can become enthused by a topic and want to learn more about it on their own.  If you make something fun, i.e. by using a learning game, surely they are more likely to do this.

Outstanding lessons are judged on teaching practices, but they are also judged on how the students behave in a lesson.  The key factors (from http://www.teachingexpertise.com/articles/outstanding-lesson-11943) include:

• Are the pupils highly engaged?
• Do they move from listening to being positively motivated?
• Do they learn and make progress?
• Do they obviously enjoy the lesson and have fun, and are they keen to discuss what they have learned and what they might be doing in the next lesson?
• Do the pupils ask appropriate (and challenging) questions?
• Do they show a keen interest in the tasks?
• Are they proud of their work?
• Are the pupils involved in deciding any part/content of the next lesson on the topic?

Most (if not all) of these criteria can be met with the use of games based learning as part of the curriculum.  Games are excellent for engaging and motivating students and providing fun and enjoyment (see blog post: ‘Motivation, Motivation, Motivation').  A teacher observing one of our games-ED lessons said:  “The children were fully engaged for all the session and the ‘buzz’ in the room was one of real active learning” (from 'Marrying up to the Situated Learning Theory').  Children also talked to their parents following the session about how much they had enjoyed the learning simulation and what they had learned.  This is obviously a step up from the usual question of “What did you do today at school sweetheart?” being met with the response, “Stuff”.

Games are also a great way of showing progress.  Many games have some sort of score, ratings, badges, achievements and so on to show progress.  A teacher overseeing one of our games-ED lessons commented: “[The children] were genuinely interested to see the impact their purchases had made on the town. They were disappointed to see the results/consequences of their purchases in Year 2 and were keen to rectify them in Year 3!”  One of the pupils in the primary school also commented, “I liked finding out what score you got at the end and looking at the improvements.”  Playing a game multiple times enables you to clearly see skill / knowledge development.

From our experience of running our learning simulations in lessons, all of these criteria can be met.  If you want more of an idea of how learning games can help you achieve outstanding lessons, have a look at these previous blog posts, ‘Marrying up to the Situated Learning Theory’, ‘Proof of the Pudding’ and ‘Proof of the Pudding Part 2’ and have a look at our corporate website: games-ed.co.uk.  There are some demos of our products on there too, if you are interested.

There are obviously other factors that are important for outstanding lessons and using learning games in every lesson would be considered inappropriate.  However, it is extremely easy to see how using games in lessons can show evidence of outstanding teaching.  And more than simply providing evidence, games could achieve these outstanding outcomes for students and make real improvements to the standard of lessons and their learning.

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