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Integration of Games in Your Curriculum 

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Integration of Games in Your Curriculum 

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Teaching new material to students can be difficult if student engagement is low. Integration of games within your curriculum opens opportunities for unique learning experiences that positively supports development in multiple domains. By including an activity that students will see as "fun" can be extremely beneficial. Educational games that support the material being taught encourages interaction with peers, supports cognitive function, and is helpful for keeping students engaged.

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What happens when a gorilla goes into a battle with a brown hyena in an Australian rain forest?

Tanya Buxton's high school biology students could find out as they embark on March Mammal Madness (MMM), a virtual game modeled after the annual NCAA basketball championship that aims to educate U.S. students about the importance of biodiversity and endangered species.

This is the second year in a row that Buxton has enrolled her Atherton, California, students in the tournament to deepen their understanding of global ecosystems while building community and camaraderie among peers.

Gameplay in school isn't just about having fun though, say Buxton and other teachers, who are increasingly using games and gaming principles to enhance instruction. From Minecraft to the Game of Life and Werewolf, effective games like March Mammal Madness link content with low-stakes competition and can provide a more collaborative, engaging classroom experience-especially for students who may struggle to focus or find their niche in learning. During the pandemic, games have also provided an important outlet that keeps kids connected and motivated remotely.

These claims aren't just anecdotal. According to research, using games in teaching can help increase student participation, foster social and emotional learning, and motivate students to take risks. One study of the popular multiple-choice quiz game Kahoot found that it improved students' attitudes toward learning and boosted their academic scores. In addition, studies have found that virtual games can improve focus and attention for students with ADHD and help students with dyslexia improve spatial and temporal attention, which can translate into improved reading.

But games aren't substitutes for other forms of learning. Like any educational tool, they need to be well-planned and integrated only when they're relevant to the learning objectives.

Think of games not as Band-Aids to fix what's broken in the classroom but as "a pedagogical approach that might help people think differently about what's possible... limited only by a player's imagination and by what a gaming set of rules allows," says Antero Garcia, an assistant professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education who studies the impact of technology and gaming on youth literacy and civic identities.

Want to integrate well-developed games or just a few gaming principles into your lessons? Here are some approaches to consider to make games a valuable teaching tool.

Test and Learn

In many games, players encounter scenarios that involve making in-the-moment decisions that let them quickly see the impact of their choices in a low-risk setting and then try (and try again) if they falter-skills that are valuable as they go through life, says Garcia.
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Teachers, for example, can use role-playing games in the classroom to help students inhabit different perspectives and understand them as part of larger, holistic systems of thought, explains Matthew Farber, a former teacher and assistant professor at the University of Northern Colorado who studies the intersection of game-based learning and SEL. This system of thinking can become a good entry point for students to learn about their own agency as they weigh possibilities and consider alternate plans of action.

Because games are interactive-unlike books or movies that involve more passive consumption-they may also encourage students to explore new topics and approaches to learning that they otherwise would not consider, he says.

In the virtual game Alba: A Wildlife Adventure, for example, players launch mini-missions where they discover and protect species of endangered animals. Though students might not consider themselves adventurers or conservationists when they play the game, the low-risk setting can get them thinking about larger-scale impacts they could have in the real world, adds Farber. As a follow-up activity, students could conduct further research on animals they encountered or even take local nature walks to identify smaller ecosystems of local wildlife.

Even if teachers aren't using a fully developed game in their class, they can use a process known as gamification, or weaving components of games such as points, leaderboards, and badges into lessons to boost students' motivation. Because students get excited about the competition from earning badges or embarking on a quest, they tend to take more risks-and, in turn, learn from their mistakes, says Manju Banerjee, an associate professor and vice president of educational research and innovation at Landmark College in Putney, Vermont.

When students are researching a topic and conducting a literature analysis, teachers can design curricula to send them on a quest-instead of framing it as a typical assignment-or rethink assessment and "tell a student that he is at a 'novice' level rather than a grade of C-" to reduce academic pressure and encourage participation," says Banerjee.

Learning in Disguise

Though it's not the only reason to play games, the fun of gameplay is a critical part of why they are so successful with children, according to educators, who say that games can help disguise the learning of essential but challenging skills that kids might otherwise resist.
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Teachers Joe Dillon and Marina Lombardo, for instance, created a poem-writing activity using Minecraft: Education Edition, in which students move through a maze and visit rooms to learn how to make their writing more descriptive. This game, inspired by Georgia Heard's Six-Room-Poem activity, guides students through specific writing prompts, such as describing an object by focusing on the ambience of its surroundings.

Many games involve a compelling storyline that can quickly hook kids, which is what makes teaching with them so effective, explains Kendra Cameron-Jarvis, an instructional technologist for Buncombe County Schools in western North Carolina. In a game she designed called Discovering the Ancient Pyramids Adventure, sixth-grade students use Google Maps Treks-which provide a 360-degree view of the ancient structures-to go on a quest inside the Great Pyramid and solve a mystery while they explore. The game reinforces what they're learning in class about ancient Egypt, she says.

"It's kind of sneaky-they don't realize they're learning," she says. "Kids are going to have a really good time, and they're going to learn along the way."

Teachers are also increasingly using apps and interactive game platforms like Kahoot and Quizizz -Kahoot says that more than 6 million teachers in 200 countries use its app to date-as fun formative assessment tools to ensure that students are on track with their learning, especially during the pandemic. Cameron-Jarvis says teachers are reporting that the platforms are so engaging, students frequently request to play them as part of their learning.

To increase the likelihood of all students participating, teachers can scaffold the difficulty levels of a game, calibrated to the current ability of the student. For students with special needs in particular, games can be beneficial because they disrupt traditional learning approaches and introduce opportunities for them to succeed where they have often struggled, says Banerjee, who has more than 29 years of experience in the field of learning disabilities.

Banerjee recommends that teachers use a myriad of low-stakes leaderboards-scoreboards that show the names and scores of participants-to highlight often-overlooked activities or skills in a way that recognizes contributions from students who typically do not perform well on traditional assignments. Teachers can give credit to the student with "the most creative calculation error" in a math class, for example, which not only makes learning more entertaining but acknowledges that all students can contribute meaningfully within a classroom.

Bringing Students Together

Though students can play games alone, most education games encourage players to collaborate effectively in teams-a building block for creating strong relationships and skills like cooperation that will be valuable as they progress through school and life, studies show.

These social interactions have been crucial during distance learning, according to Douglas Kiang, a high school computer science teacher at the Menlo School. Since schools went virtual last spring, Kiang has used Minecraft to give students a chance to interact with each other while learning social skills such as teamwork, negotiation, and respect for others. He also plays Among Us with his advisory group of about 10 students.

"I think games are useful in that respect for bonding and for allowing kids to socialize and communicate with each other," says Kiang, who is a nationally recognized expert on game-based learning and technology integration.

Integrating more community-building elements into your classroom doesn't always require playing a multiplayer video game, though, says Cameron-Jarvis. She suggests posting questions in the stream of popular tools like Google Classroom, Flipgrid, and Nearpod, and letting students respond, interact, and debate ideas. Other teachers have used Google tools to make their own versions of traditional games like Connect Four or Tic Tac Toe so that students get a brain break from academic learning.

The important part of using games in the classroom is trying not to gamify everything and to start small, using games with rules that students understand, says Cameron-Jarvis. The mix of games also matters, adds Farber, who says teachers should aim for variety. If you do let kids play games in class, he says, "think about the emotions those games evoke besides strategy and procedure."

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How to Use Gameplay to Enhance Classroom Learning

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Research shows that using games in teaching can help increase student participation, foster social and emotional learning, and motivate students to take risks.

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Being outdoors whether students are learning or engaging in play time, can enrich every experience and encourage students to get their daily vitamin D. Along with the benefits of integration of games in the classroom, being outdoors adds the aspect of bettering physical/mental health and wellbeing. Something as simple as a school-run family picnic can encourage students and their families to get outside, move around, and reap the benefits of being in the sun.

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Students who have special needs require an accommodative environment. The thirteen disabilities described by IDEA are all disabilities that are encountered in the classroom. It's important to assess your classroom and understand the needs of all students before planning any play activity or area. For example, a classroom with students who have intellectual disabilities does not require mobility accommodations, and vise versa.

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It is important to keep in mind the needs of all students in the classroom. One standard play area might not be accommodative to the students in the classroom who have special needs. A way to create an inclusive environment is to ensure that your play area has an open concept, multiple options for interaction, and different environments. Open concepts that include large areas of space in between activities is beneficial for students who have physical disabilities and deficits. Multiple options for activities provide different levels of demand for social interaction, which supports students with disabilities who may struggle with certain types of socialization. Lastly, providing quiet and talking environments gives students a safe space to wind down or engage in peer interaction.

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All children benefit from being outside, interacting with their environment, learning from nature and developing through play. These experiences can be especially powerful for children with disabilities and inclusive play makes these opportunities available to all children, regardless of ability and background. Inclusive play doesn't mean that every element is accessible to everyone, but it does mean that the combination of experiences adds to something equally great for each child. Some children can't climb to the top of a rope, some don't want to, others really need to. The same is true with quieter, more creative activities. Diverse and flexible opportunities are needed.

It doesn't need to be complicated, but it does require thought. It means thinking about what different children can access - what can a child engage with if they use a wheelchair, or if they have autism or get distracted easily? Can disabled and non-disabled friends and siblings play together?

Diversity of play

Play is by nature diversity - how does this get missed so often in play design? Play can be physical, noisy and challenging, but equally it can be quiet, creative and reflective. Some children love the social aspects, others need more contemplative space.

Some children want to charge about and others are happier quietly playing in a sand pit. Some will be more prone to injury from others knocking into them.

Diversity of children

Some children use wheelchairs, either all or part of the time, and some use walking aids. Children with certain health conditions have reduced stamina or may need to avoid boisterous play.

Visual impairment can mean total blindness but more often partial sight with ability to make out some colours, contrasts and patterns.

Hearing impairment may be total deafness, and for some BSL as a primary language, and most commonly partial hearing.

Learning difficulties include leaning disability, sensory processing disorders, behavioural issues, Autism and specific forms like dyslexia.

Mental health problems can be short or long-term, and there is increasing prevalence of anxiety and depression in young people.

Designing inclusive play

Create a rich mix of play opportunities

Physical: eg open space for running/wheeling, tree or logs for climbing and balance; a wall for ball games; open space for running/wheeling; markings for chalk games; play equipment for different physical challenges.

Creative: eg quiet spaces with natural materials for making things; weeping trees and sensory domes for dens; story telling space; sensory plantings to support activities.

Social: eg areas for chatting and reading; tables and chairs for card and board games; open spaces for group activities.

Engage the senses

All children benefit from an approach that engages all the senses so aim to maximise opportunities.

Choose materials and activities to explore through all the senses - interesting textures, shapes, solidity, weight, pattern, colour, temperature.

Heighten sensory stimuli in some areas, reduce it in others, to provide choice.

Consider children with sensory impairments, eg things to explore through touch, reflected light or strong colours and contrast. Interest through sound and vibration.

Make different types of space

Make spaces where children have a choice of busier, more active areas and quieter areas.

Consider boundaries to reduce scope for children to wander, or for other security issues.

Provide quiet space that serves as time-out for children who need it.

Include shelter from inclement weather and strong sun, and seating.

Zone for type of use and avoid segregation.

Make it accessible

Children must be able to get to the play area - from school, home or car park - so think about the whole journey, not just the space itself.

Within the play area, aim for a surface that has good impact absorption but is relatively firm (avoiding deep loose materials for example)

Consider widths, height and reach for different children, including scope to include wheelchair-adapted play facilities.

With physical play, choose a range of physical options - some focused more on upper body motor skills for example.

Include options for wheelchair-users to fully engage. Ensure 'run-about' areas include options for trikes and wheelchairs.

Consider accessible information and signage, for example including symbols, braille or pictorial images as appropriate.

Don't forget parents and families

Make sure there is seating and shelter nearby for parents, grandparents and carers.

They may have disabilities so ensure good access from seating into the play area so they can support their children.

Ensure disabled and non-disabled siblings can play together.

Consulting with children and families - before and after you design something - is your best way of finding out what children want and how well your design has succeeded.

Search for examples of inclusive play and use the good ideas you find. Then be sure to share yours so everyone can learn from each other.

gofindit: inclusive outdoor play

We designed gofindit in response to parents and teachers wanting to encourage children to engage their senses through play. Tested and developed alongside children with disabilities, gofindit can be played and enjoyed by all ages and abilities.

The accessible design supports word recognition and language development and the flexible playing options allow everyone to get outdoors and engage with nature.

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Guidance by Sensory Trust shows how to design inclusive play opportunities so they are engaging for all children, regardless of disability and circumstance.