User Generated Education

A few weeks ago, I blogged about my gaming club in Video Games for Relationship- and Team Building. It is still going very strong. Students from the three schools where I teach gifted students look forward to it all week long. We started with Fornite Creative but now they have moved onto Rocket League and Among Us. Recent research supports the positive benefits of playing video games:

With the UK in a second national lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic and Christmas on the horizon, many will stay indoors to play and socially connect through video games. New research from Oxford University has delivered a surprising finding; time spent playing games is positively associated with wellbeing (Groundbreaking new study says time spent playing video games can be good for your wellbeing).

This led me to seek out ways to use their interest in these games to teach academics. I cannot adequately express how grateful I am for educators’ generous and giving personalities as well for the social media platforms where they share resources and ideas. Since I know how much my learners love Among Us, I did an internet search for its use in classroom settings. I found a blog post by @SteinbrinkLaura entitled, How to Add Game Elements to Your Lesson: Among Us-Google Style! Using her ideas as well as some found on the New York Times article, Lesson of the Day: ‘With Nowhere to Go, Teens Flock to Among Us’, I created a language arts Among Us type of game. So, in essence, both language arts and SEL standards are addressed. Here is the slide deck I used with my upper elementary gifted students:

Here is the link to the presentation – https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Arrd1astkWMQw4iaQMCVuUJ5-miT_EochPB-JC6wOjA/edit#slide=id.p if you want to use it. You will need to make a copy if you want to use it as is or adapt it. Just remember that when using it with students, it should be as a shared doc meaning anyone with a link has editing permission. Here is a snippet of students playing this game:

At the end of the remote learning class where I used it, I heard the words I love to hear from students, “That was fun.” I plan to use this activity again with a different article and a different set of questions.

I never cease to be amazed on the power of games. I have been using games for decades with kids, with teens, and with college students. I have used board games, card games, competitive games, non competitive games, ice breakers, team building games, adventure games, and video games to teach. Their success rate in terms of student engagement and enjoyment is probably close to 100%. I know of no other instructional strategy that consistently have this success rate. My parting shot is a sketch-note by colleague John Spencer about the benefits of games: