# data[].attributes.body
"...game participants discover through direct personal experience that “We’re better together,” that “Many hands make light work,” and “Many heads are better than one.”

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
What Are Cooperative Games?

Have you heard about cooperative games? Cooperative games are games based on cooperation rather than competition. There are cooperative games of all kinds for all ages and settings. Cooperative games range from board games to circle games to PE games to digital games and more. They are all based on the principle that it can be just as much fun-well, actually more fun-to play with each other than against each other!

In a cooperative game, players work together to win. The fun comes from the camaraderie and challenge of the game, not from being the "best" player left standing when everyone else is eliminated. In a cooperative game, no player is ever eliminated. What is eliminated is fear of failure and the incentive to beat others.

While competitive games emphasize individual achievement (as measured by being "better" than others), cooperative games emphasize the joy and productivity that come from working together to achieve a group goal. A well-designed cooperative game assures that players will experience the heart-felt happiness that comes from being included in a safe and supportive community. Also, a good cooperative game assures that players will practice and value pro-social skills such as sharing, encouraging one another, contributing, and giving and taking. Further, by its very nature, a good cooperative game will clearly demonstrate that cooperating with others is practical and productive. That is, game participants discover through direct personal experience that "We're better together," that "Many hands make light work," and "Many heads are better than one."

Thus, well-designed cooperative games provide rich opportunities for experiential learning. They teach a valuable, pro-social lesson about the benefits of collaboration and they do it in a fun and natural way through direct personal experience.

Cooperative Games in Education

Do cooperative games have a role in education? It is easy to see that they do. As described above, cooperative games motivate players to want to cooperate plus they teach the skills needed to cooperate and they help players recognize the value in cooperation versus constant competition. The desire and ability to cooperate with one's peers has manifold applications in education as all teachers know. So cooperative games should rightfully be part of every teacher's "bag of tricks."

For example, consider cooperative learning. Cooperative learning is essential pedagogy because it improves educational outcomes, yet its effectiveness hinges on students' willingness and ability to work together. By introducing students to cooperative games, which naturally and effortlessly teach cooperation, the teacher primes students for success in cooperative learning. Thus cooperative games are a sensible and smart way teachers can prepare kids for wonderful cooperative learning, group work, and collaborative project-based learning experiences.

Besides paving the way for formal cooperative learning strategies, cooperative games can also be used to teach academic subjects. More and more educational cooperative games are being developed for classroom learning these days, as the concept of cooperative games is beginning to catch on at a large scale. Educational cooperative games combine the pedagogical power of play with the advantages of learning in small groups; thus they tap two major approaches to teaching and learning. With educational cooperative games, students can learn language, math, science or other academic content at the same time that they practice cooperating. (See CooperativeGames.com at http://cooperativegames.com/ for free classroom-ready games as well as games for purchase.)

The essential role of play in learning is well-documented. For young children especially, play is the primary activity by which learning takes place. Plato said over two thousand years ago: "Do not keep children to their studies by compulsion but by play." Cooperative games are thus important for teachers to know about simply because play is so important in learning and cooperative games use the power of play. And this is in addition to all the benefits related to cooperation!

But we are not finished yet in our summary of the benefits of cooperative games in education. Another reason that cooperative games belong in every teacher's tool kit is that they support the broad aims of social-and-emotional learning (SEL). SEL is increasingly recognized as essential education, necessary for the development of the whole child. According to Maurice Elias, director of Rutgers University's Social and Emotional Learning Lab, SEL is the process through which we learn to recognize and manage emotions, care about others, make good decisions, behave ethically and responsibly, and avoid negative behaviors. SEL is the needed complement to academic content learning, because students need more than academic information to grow into happy, healthy, responsible adults successful in work and relationships. Clearly, cooperative games, which teach children how and why to get along together, help students build many underlying social-and-emotional competencies.

Besides preparing students for cooperative learning, teaching subject area knowledge, and building social-and-emotional competency, cooperative games relate to other areas of education, ranging from sustainability to special education. Indeed the applications of cooperative games to education are too many to discuss in a single blog post. You can check CooperativeGames.com for more extensive discussion.

However, this introduction to cooperative games in education would be utterly incomplete without discussing one more benefit: Cooperative games literally reduce aggressive behavior both during game play and afterwards too. This fact has been demonstrated in independent University research. (See "Cooperative Games: A Way to Modify Aggressive and Cooperative Behaviors in Young Children" by April K. Bay-Hinitz et al. in The Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1994.) The ability of cooperative games to not only increase pro-social skills but also reduce aggression has important implications for school climate. More to the point, because playing cooperative games reduces aggression, cooperative games should be utilized on a wide scale-in every classroom and at different age levels-to prevent bullying.

Cooperative Games and Bullying

Bullying is a cruel torment which is all too common. Bullying produces moments of knife-sharp suffering during the school day and it can leave dull, aching pain that lasts a lifetime too. Kids who are victims of bullying are five times more likely to be depressed compared to their peers. Kids who bully suffer as well. Bullies are at high risk for serious negative consequences including social isolation, poor academic performance and later criminal behavior. Indeed nearly 60 percent of boys classified as bullies in grades six through nine were convicted of at least one crime by the age of 24.

Naturally, teachers, parents, and government agencies are alarmed about bullying. Teachers understand that they cannot ignore the potential for bullying to disrupt the classroom and undermine learning. What to do?

A go-to source for information is StopBullying.gov, the Federal Government's main information outlet on the subject. According to StopBullying.gov, "the easiest way to address bullying is to stop it before it starts." In other words, bullying prevention is the most efficient way to respond to the problem. Of course, teachers, administrators, and even peers need training in how to respond to full-blown incidents of physical, verbal, and social bullying. However, the important point is that prevention matters as well, and is indeed the most efficient way to address the bullying crisis.

At StopBullying.gov, the section Prevent Bullying offers a handful of guidelines to stop bullying before it starts. Among them, it directs school personnel to "build a safe environment" by reinforcing "positive social interactions and inclusiveness." You can surely see that positive social interactions and inclusiveness are indeed what cooperative games are all about! Using cooperative games to protect and improve school climate is a sensible first line of defense against the meanness, aggression, domination, and exclusivity that lead to bullying. Especially when introduced early, these games have great promise.

The Cooperative Games Bullying Prevention Program

The field of cooperative games is growing by leaps and bounds. The first time the term "cooperative game" appears in the literature is in a short pamphlet published in 1950 by Education professor and peace researcher Theo Lentz along with his co-author Ruth Cornelius, who was a first-grade teacher. Though this work was not well-circulated, the concept of cooperative games as an alternative to competitive games was first articulated by Lentz and Cornelius. It has seeped slowly through the culture and begun to bloom in diverse forms. Kinesiology professor and Olympic coach Terry Orlick pioneered the use of active cooperative games in the 1970's through his many excellent books. Jim Deacove was the pioneer of cooperative board games, which he began to produce through his small company Family Pastimes in the 1970's. He is still at it today! Many cooperative game designers, inspired by these early pioneers, have followed over the past decade or so.

What has been lacking until now however is awareness of the strong pedagogical rationale for using cooperative games in education. This article seeks to address that gap. So thank you for reading it and please share if you agree that cooperative games are a pedagogical idea whose time has come! As this article hopefully indicates, there are many robust reasons that cooperative games should be used in education, not the least of which is that they can prevent bullying. It is time we educators discover and share the many benefits of playing together!

Further, if you are a teacher or parent responsible for the education of very young children, a resource for using cooperative games to prevent bullying is now available to you. The Cooperative Games Bullying Prevention Program, published in 2015, gives you all the practical knowledge and tools necessary to use this approach. This is the first bullying prevention program based explicitly on cooperative games. The core games used in The Cooperative Games Bullying Prevention Program are the very games that were tested in the 1994 University of Nevada study on cooperative games and shown to work. Thus The Cooperative Games Bullying Prevention Program is a solid, research-based approach to preventing bullying with data to back it up. It is also easy to implement, inexpensive, and of course fun! To find out more or purchase the program visit CooperativeGames.com http://cooperativegames.com/.

Finally, to make this all a bit more concrete, here is one of the research-tested, active cooperative games featured in The Cooperative Games Bullying Prevention Program. Give it a try and have some fun! And while your students wiggle and giggle without a care in the world, know that in fact you are bringing them this joyous opportunity because you indeed care so much about the world. Thank you. May the peaceful power of cooperative play be with you and yours!
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO Half a Heart
Materials: Red construction paper or cardboard hearts, cut in half; make these yourself or use Valentine's Day hearts

Time Estimate: 10 minutes

Number of Players: Any

Object of the Game: To find the friend with the missing half of one's heart

Skills: Cooperation; Large motor skills; Communication; Math; Critical thinking

Game Category: Classroom game

To Play: In advance, prepare the hearts. You will need half as many hearts as you have children playing the game. On one half of each heart, write a number and on the other half, draw that number of circles (or use a different shape or picture besides circles if you like, for example, smiley faces.) Cut the hearts in half so one side has the number and the other half has the picture of the circles. Give each child half a heart. Ask the children to skip around the room while you play music. Now, stop the music. Ask each child to match his heart-half with its counterpart. After everyone has found their partner by matching numbers and shapes, have the children trade their halves for a different number. Start the music again, ask the kids to skip around, and find a new partner by making their half hearts whole.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Cooperative Games 101: What Are Cooperative Games and How Can They Help Education? - Corwin Connect

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What Are Cooperative Games? Have you heard about cooperative games? Cooperative games are games based on cooperation rather than competition. There are cooperative games of all kinds for all ages and settings. Cooperative games range from board games to circle games to PE games to digital ...

# data[].attributes.body
"Playing cooperative games engages the whole person—hand, heart and mind...cooperative games facilitate sharing, caring and appreciation for one another."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Click here to download a Cooperative Games Flyer.
In Cooperative Games, people play with one another rather than against each other. Players enjoy each other as they share resources and make decisions. The fun comes from the setting and story of the game-not from striving to become the winner who takes all.

When we play, we practice how to be in the world. So when we play cooperatively and use cooperative skills including listening, sharing, negotiating, etc., we are actually learning beneficial relationship skills that will help us be good at teamwork and collaborating with others in the real world. Practicing collaborative skills is a huge benefit of cooperative games and a strong reason that these games are useful in education as well as in family and work settings.

Playing cooperative games engages the whole person-hand, heart and mind. Cooperative games pose challenges that take savvy and skill to meet. We share ideas and strategies to win together-so our mental faculties are fully engaged. Besides that, cooperative games facilitate sharing, caring and appreciation for one another. So we learn that cooperation is not just beneficial in a practical sense for achieving goals and accomplishing tasks. Cooperation is also a joy and makes us feel good. In this way, cooperative games open hearts. Cooperative games are active and sensory, too. The cooperative board games we supply at our CooperativeGames.com SHOP are visually appealing with beautiful art and enchanting game pieces. And the active cooperative games that you can learn about through the books we sell and the free resources we offer engage the kinesthetic side of players. (Please See FUN AND FREE and check our BLOG and FACEBOOK page for active co-op games.) So it's through hands, hearts and minds that cooperative games work their magic.

Cooperative games are a needed antidote to the excessive competition we experience in today's hypercompetitive society. In the modern, industrialized world winning and "getting ahead" take on exaggerated importance. We hammer competition into kids at school then ask for more on the sports field and even in the games kids play to "relax" at home. It never lets up even though research and common sense tell us that excessive competition leads to stress, envy, anxiety, inequity, reduced productivity and feelings of isolation and depression. It's harmful to self-esteem and relationships. So it's healthy to take a break from competition and play a cooperative game!

Cooperative games are healthy for the Earth too. What's the connection? Cooperative games teach cooperation-and cooperation is necessary for a sustainable environment. When we cooperate, we find ways to share resources rather than racing to grab them for ourselves, trampling our beloved Earth in the process. And cooperation promotes complex problem-solving. Today's environmental problems are big and complex. Surely we will be more successful solving them if we can work together.

Did you know that Elinor Ostrom won the 2009 Nobel Prize in economics for her work on cooperation? She showed that, in many cultures worldwide, people cooperate to preserve the resources they depend upon-even when there is no outside authority enforcing that sharing. It's sustainable common sense, action based on enlightened self-interest. People really can and do cooperate! Competition is not as necessary nor as healthy as many people have come to believe.

Here's something else few people know: Biologists say that cooperation is more normal in nature than competition is. For example biologist Peter Kropotkin says: "competition . . . is limited in animals to exceptional periods . . . Better conditions are created by the elimination of competition by means of mutual aid and mutual support." Stephen Jay Gould stated that our emphasis on competition rather than cooperation in nature reflects cultural bias. Did you know the phrase "survival of the fittest" was not coined by Charles Darwin but by Industrialist Herbert Spencer??

Hurrah for Cooperation! I wish you many hours of fun, joy, and learning by playing cooperative games! They are good for us in our own lives-and they support the common good too.

Yours truly,

Suzanne Lyons
Owner CooperativeGames.com
suzanne@cooperativegames.com

Below is a flyer on the benefits of cooperative games that you can download for free and share. Please don't use this for commerical purposes without getting Suzanne's permission first. (I will probably say YES but please ask first.)
Click here to download a Cooperative Games Flyer.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
cooperative games benefits cooperative games

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Click here to download a Cooperative Games Flyer. In Cooperative Games, people play with one another rather than against each other. Players enjoy each other as they share resources and make decisions. The fun comes from the setting and story of the game-not from striving to become the winner who takes all.

# data[].attributes.body
Prodigy is a math gaming program unto itself.  It provides modification to individual student abilities.  The game is engaging and provides embeded supports to assist struggling students.   Prodigy will be one acceptable homework component. Within the game of ClassCraft, teams will earn rewards for doing homework.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
5 Steps to Implementing Game-Based Learning in the Classroom [+ Game Examples]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
All Posts Many teachers struggle to smoothly incorporate games into lessons due to time and logistical issues, yet see game-based learning (GBL) as a way to engage students and appeal to diverse learning styles. Research has continuously shown such advantages.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.quickclass.net/2018/07/10/many-benefits-turning-learning-game/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Many Benefits of Turning Learning into a Game

Learning can be tedious, especially if the volume of information exceeds a certain amount or is complex and too difficult to grasp just by reading, listening or filling in worksheets. Learning is an activity that needs to be done by the learner. Teachers and teaching tools can only support and assist this voluntary process happening within the learner's head. New approaches to learning seek new forms and engaging media to tackle this problem. However, the most important aspect when it comes to learning is intrinsic motivation to stay on the topic and display enough grit to work through the material in a comprehensive and profound way.

That's why eLearning seems to be such an appropriate approach, because it's easily available and can offer a wide variety of sources and materials. Additionally, if you gamify eLearning by offering levels, intermittent rewards, score keeping and leaderboards, you add to the level of comparability (between approaches) and create additional learner motivation. As mentioned in an previous article, gamification is not for everyone. If you focus too much on competition or don't make the eLearning tool interesting enough through other means like great UI and presentation you risk being too dull or intimidating.

If we consider their potential for creating motivation, games are the most successful medium of our times. The Games Industry is continually growing worldwide and games enter many different areas of communication and education. All games are learning, it is just a question of what the game makes you do and which context it is set in. Serious Games and Educational Games are on the rise and a growing number of companies aim to bring this potential to their corporate training and professional development programs.

At one end of the spectrum, you have successful games and companies like Microsoft with Minecraft or Ubisoft with their Assassin's Creed franchise which are being used for learning. At the other end you have games exclusively built for learning or professional development and corporate training that are used by major global companies. These games are highly effective when it comes to motivation and retention of the material. But they are aimed at learning in school or are expensive to develop, so that these all-in-one solutions aren't generally available for smaller companies.

So, there appears to be the need for a third way to enhance learning, motivation and retention. Combining existing e-Learning solutions with tried and tested game mechanics is a promising approach. The benefits of e-Learning applications have been mentioned before, combine them with engaging aspects of gaming and you get the intended result, a comprehensive application that engages learners to stay on the topic and create opportunities to experiment, reflect and develop a deeper understanding because it's fun and motivating to do so.

The benefits of using games in learning are manifold. Games tell stories and engage us in interesting plots. They let us try and experiment and making mistakes as part of the learning process. Games...

are a fun and motivating way to tackle a topic

are interactive, so you take on an active (rather than passive) role in your learning

invite you to take risks without 'real-world' consequences and so you can try completely different approaches

create a feeling of agency

create situated meaning, everything you learn is set in an appropriate context

invite you to explore, think laterally and rethink your goals

enable and promote the interaction of cross-functional teams and they

put performance before competence, so that you are able to create your own learning path and focus on the aspects and actions that matter to you personally

Imagine the following, you are taking part in a program to work on your personal and social skills, to develop your character and reflect your identity (21 st Century Skills like communication, cooperation and creativity are based on these personal traits). Why not make this a role playing game in which you actually create a character and go through a story line that matters to you personally together with teammates and create an experience that supports the coherence of the team and helps you reflect on who you are and who you intend to be. You could say, if you play a game like this for learning about yourself, that you start your own Hero's Journey that offers deep insights into your personality whilst at the same time immersing you in a compelling and relevant story. That is actually what games often do. If you consider the benefits of game-based learning mentioned above, using a game like this for learning and corporate training offers exciting opportunities while at the same time creating a setting that is fun and free of real-life negative consequences.

Games can and will radically change the way we learn. Playing is our natural way of learning and at the same time can be the highest form of research. If we know, how to apply it to learning and training settings we can achieve a quantum leap in motivating learners and effectively conveying the content of what we seek to teach and learn no matter how hard this might initially seem.

About the Author: Thomas Kunze is an educator from Vienna, an academic, an avid gamer and a specialist for games and learning. He founded the Games Institute Austria, considers games the most important medium of the 21st century and his games library consists of several thousand games.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Many Benefits of Turning Learning into a Game - Quickclass

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learning can be tedious, especially if the volume of information exceeds a certain amount or is complex and too difficult to grasp just by reading, listening or filling in worksheets. Learning is an activity that needs to be done by the learner.

# data[].attributes.body
"Transform your school or classroom into an epic adventure your students play throughout the year!"
Website that provides mechanics to create team based gaming environment.  Focus is on team support, interaction, shared learning and moving the focus from learning discrete lessons to completing learning "quests" that will benefit the student and the team.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Turning Learning into a Game! by Shaitra Flores

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learning is a process that mirrors an epic adventure in many ways. There are ups and downs, and challenges to overcome. This year I want to integrate Classcraft into my classroom to really engage my students and show them how exciting learning can be.