Gamers logo

Education Via Gaming: How Gaming Is Making It Possible for Kids to Learn Better at School

Education via gaming has been around for decades but nowadays, it's turning into the most popular way to get kids to learn. Here's why this is a great thing.

By Ossiana TepfenhartPublished 7 years ago 6 min read
Like

Schools using gaming as a way to better education is not a new thing; not by a long shot.

If you're like most Millennials, you probably remember the days you spent in the computer lab playing Oregon Trail. The game, which was all about teaching kids the hardships that settlers had to deal with when they were going out West, has become a cherished memory among millions of school kids since it was first created in the early 90s.

Though most of us remember the painfully slow trek across the states and being told that we died of dysentery every five seconds, the fact is that Oregon Trail and other games like it really got us thinking about history. Games like Math Blasters, for example, helped countless kids memorize their simple math skills.

But, today's games aren't just limited to history and math lessons like the ones that most older Millennials remember. Moreover, games aren't only limited to computer lab times in many cases, either.

Education via gaming is turning into a way of life for many students, and it's helping kids learn better, faster, and more enthusiastically than ever before. Here's how it's doing it all, and why education via gaming is now a top choice for younger kids.

Education Via Gaming Fixes A Lot of Classroom Problems

If you've ever tried to teach kids, particularly kids who are elementary school aged or middle school aged, then you already know why having them read from books, watch a chalkboard, or work in teams is hard.

These are the ages at which kids tend to hate being in school the most, and when they will rebel from learning just because they can. Trying to get rebellious kids to learn better at school is an oft-attempted endeavor that yields very few results.

In many schools, educational goals aren't a focus for kids - nor for their parents. Getting them to just sit down for hours at a time can become a Herculean task, just because they don't see the point in learning. Learning, for many kids, is boring if it's done in a traditional way.

After all, what kind of kid would really want to spend their time listening to a teacher prattle on about why X plus Y equals Z? They wouldn't want to, especially if no one in their family sees a value in education.

As a result, kids get bored, classrooms get noisy, and teachers can't teach. When kids get bored, they get noisy, argumentative, or otherwise just not well-behaved.

Education via gaming fixes this, since it makes learning entertaining for them. It's no longer about trying to get them to pass for a resume 10 years in the future; it's about getting them to want to win a game.

Most kids are totally alright with sitting and playing games for hour after hour. This leads to kids who are quieter, more cooperative, and interested in learning.

Since kids are willing to play educational games, they're willing to learn game related facts...which incidentally, also tends to make their grades rise. Considering the effects, it's easy to see why many teachers swear by education via gaming.

There's a Side Effect to Educational Games Most Won't Bring Up, Either

For what it's worth, there's a lot of suspicion about giving kids too much "screen time." People worry about kids losing their social skills or losing interest in sports. But, the fact is that they often discount the other, unspoken skills that games tend to bring out in kids.

A panel at Stanford recently talked about the soft skills games often teach students, namely discipline and patience. Considering that many gamers are patient enough to continue playing for hours at a time, it's impossible to deny that there's a certain element of patience and discipline there.

As one Stanford scientist noted...

"Skills such as patience and discipline, which one should acquire as a child but often does not, correlate with success better than IQ scores do. And those non-cognitive skills – that is, not what you know but how you behave – are far better suited to a game context than to a traditional classroom and textbook context."

Additionally, many games also tend to make people think outside the box - especially when you are competing against other people. Games like Halo make it possible to learn and coordinate tactical skills, and basically force you to get imaginative, social, and smart in order to win.

Granted, Halo isn't an educational game, but there's nothing saying that games that take the educational route can't take elements from the hit series.

Moreover, another study cited by the Stanford crowd showed that boys in particular tend to do well in gaming environments focused on learning. Simply put, they are willing to push themselves harder and are also more keen on learning if they feel they have the choice to pick what they read, learn, or play.

In a regular classroom, most kids don't feel like they have a choice other than to listen to the teacher. However, in gaming environments, classrooms become playrooms that empower each kid. Getting a student learning is easy if they want to learn, and giving them the choice makes them want to do that.

This is how education via gaming works, and how it helps kids learn better at school - it puts the power in their hands.

Games Also Help Teachers Learn

One of the most unique aspects of education via gaming is the way that it helps teachers measure how well kids are learning. It's easy to see, on a statistic level, which kids are struggling, and which kids aren't via a game. Every day, you get to see which problems kids got wrong, which they got right, and how they are doing from day to day.

More interestingly, some of the Stanford panelists also pointed out that you can also see which kids have a higher chance of failure due to attitude problems in games rather than in standard classrooms. Studies showed that children who walk away from games after losing tend to fail from school more, too.

"In studying how kids played games, his group found that one of the best negative predictors of performance was the act of walking away after failure. Low scores themselves were far less significant than abandonment, and abandonment is a measurement that does not exist in a traditional classroom."

In other words, teachers can find out when kids tend to feel disenfranchised with their learning - or when kids may have esteem issues that make them want to give up. This can, in theory, allow teachers to step in, and help kids learn better tactics to cope with their hardship.

The Myth of Gaming Causing Creativity Loss

One of the biggest arguments against education via gaming was, for a long time, the threat of kids losing their imagination as they plug into the same kind of game worlds. Mainstream games like Minecraft regularly get kids to explore their imaginative sides, and also encourage kids to get more creative with the resources they have.

Taking a cue from this, many educational games being issued out by school systems are now molding themselves after popular kids' games. Scientific American actually went so far as to cite a number of examples in a recent article:

"MinecraftEdu, a version of the game that teachers created for educational purposes, teaches students mathematical concepts including perimeter, area and probabilities as well as foreign languages. SimCityEDU, a version of the popular city-building game, is likewise a learning and assessment tool for middle school students that covers the English, math and other lessons they need to master to meet Common Core State and Next Generation Science standards."

In other words, schools are now using educational games to prep kids for the standardized tests that once struck fear into kids' and teachers' hearts. They also are being used to help bolster visual learners in a system that is often most geared toward verbal teaching methods.

The results, as they've seen, have been very good. It seems like gaming students are good students - and way more manageable, too.

But, Limits Do Exist

Kids do need to learn to read. They do need to have personal teacher education time. They need to have the kind of interaction that helps them learn social skills outside a screen. They need to actually learn skills that can be applied in real life, and they need to be able to sit down and read a book.

So, no, education via gaming can't be done for 10 hours of school per day. There needs to be time when teachers actually buckle down and work with the kids. Even so, it's clear that this is a great method to help students realize their full potential.

fact or fiction
Like

About the Creator

Ossiana Tepfenhart

Ossiana Tepfenhart is a writer based out of New Jersey. This is her work account. She loves gifts and tips, so if you like something, tip her!

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.