The book, “Serious Play: Literacy, Learning, and Digital Games”, explores how educators can incorporate videogames into their classrooms to enhance student learning and engagement. The chapters I focused on demonstrate how videogames can reinterpret the curriculum in new ways to create more access points for a diversity of students.

 

Chapter 5, “Curating the Curriculum with Digital Games” (by Michael Dezuanni and Jason Zagami) examines how several different teachers used videogames to supplement their curriculum. The main idea in this chapter is that by playing games in class, students can gain new perspectives on the material and the games they may play outside of school. This, especially when accompanied by students’ own creations, can lead to new and complex understandings of the world around them. One teacher used Minecraft as a stimulus for writing. Another had their students analyze the physics in games based on what they had learned in class. A socials class attempted total immersion in civics by playing Statecraft X both in and outside of school. Lastly, Religious Education students debated the moral choices in Agent: Mission One, before creating their own games to teach ethics to others.

 

Chapter 8, “Mining The Cli-Fi World: Renegotiating the Curriculum Using Minecraft” (by Joanne O’Mara and Kynan Robinson) took things a step further, describing the case of a teacher who used Minecraft as the foundation for their project-based curriculum. Throughout the unit, students learned through design, drama, scientific inquiry, and persuasive writing. The open system of the game, and of the accompanying Wiki that the students built, allowed students to self-organize and find others to collaborate with. The open system also allowed a few industrious students to, after completing their work, build a secret island completely unbeknownst to their teacher.

 

Chapter 13, “Quests, Achievements and Experience Points: Opportunities to Level Up Through School-Based Serious Play” (by Leonie Rowan and Sarah Prestridge) explores how games provide a transformative opportunity to at-risk students. Videogames can be a vehicle for students to learn life skills. For example, a kindergartener who had no experience with books learned how they function by playing a Beatrix Potter app. Similarly, a student on the autism spectrum played Choiceworks to plan their day and their actions for when they experienced certain emotions. Videogames can also provide a voice to students who may otherwise fade into the background. One talented student was too shy to demonstrate their abilities, but the game Land of Um gave them the opportunity to excel; this helped develop their confidence when their creations earned not only their teacher’s but also their peers’ admiration. Students who are afraid of presentations can use avatars to prerecord their talk, and still share what they know without speaking in front of the class. Videogames can also help re-motivate low-achieving students and give them the opportunity to take on new roles that they would otherwise avoid in traditional classroom activities. This was shown through the cases of two different students, who were able to become leaders through Minecraft and Edmodo.

 

In all these scenarios, the teachers carefully considered the best time and method for using videogames with their students. In chapter 13 there was one teacher wanted to use Minecraft in their class but was unsure of how. They asked the students and used the ideas generated to create a collaborative design project that was much grander in scope than a simple writing assignment. By connecting what students are learning to what they do outside of school, we create the opportunity for them to feel motivated to explore the world they live in from a new perspective. Videogames created more opportunities for students to succeed, and each time a student had a success they improved their self-esteem and opened themselves up to new possible futures.

 

Citations:

Beavis, Catherine, Dezuanni, Michael, & O’Mara, Joanne (2017). Serious play: Literacy, learning and digital games. New York: Routledge. Available at: https://bit.ly/2OAnexd