Which aspects of story and game mechanics will be useful in your class and how might you use them?
This weeks main question has a lot of room for interpretation. I feel that with everyones unique situation and experience the blog posts this week will be a lot of fun to read. For me I will need to think of this question in hypothetical situation because I am not currently working in a classroom.
When I was in my own classroom I used games a lot. We would play games with Osmo sets. We would also play structured games outside on the playground to help them understand and practice taking turns, sharing, and playing nicely with each other.
There are so many aspects of game mechanics and stories that can have a positive impact on students learning. Whether it be from actual games that are played like ones that allow students to practice their letter or sound recognition, look at parts of speech, or prepare for a quiz. All these will help students find the motivation to learn more. They will encourage all students to be engaged and active learners.
For my own classroom I would like to do simple things like allowing each student to put in their own lunch order for the day. While this doesn't seem like a game exactly, I believe it will give each student the chance to think about the necessary steps to put in their lunch order. They would need to stand in line (practice polite line behavior), remember what type of lunch they are having, and use the technology correctly to report accurately if they brought a lunch from home or need one from the school.
For older kiddos we would have relay races to practice necessary material through out a lesson. Students would have the chance to move a bit and get energy out, and practice what they learned using game mechanics. This can be done for topics including, spelling words, math facts, parts of speech, counters or animal habitats.
There are so many ways game mechanics can be used in the classroom so I think it is important to remember that each classroom and day will be different and pick and implement different games depending how things are going in the room.
This weeks main question has a lot of room for interpretation. I feel that with everyones unique situation and experience the blog posts this week will be a lot of fun to read. For me I will need to think of this question in hypothetical situation because I am not currently working in a classroom.
When I was in my own classroom I used games a lot. We would play games with Osmo sets. We would also play structured games outside on the playground to help them understand and practice taking turns, sharing, and playing nicely with each other.
There are so many aspects of game mechanics and stories that can have a positive impact on students learning. Whether it be from actual games that are played like ones that allow students to practice their letter or sound recognition, look at parts of speech, or prepare for a quiz. All these will help students find the motivation to learn more. They will encourage all students to be engaged and active learners.
For my own classroom I would like to do simple things like allowing each student to put in their own lunch order for the day. While this doesn't seem like a game exactly, I believe it will give each student the chance to think about the necessary steps to put in their lunch order. They would need to stand in line (practice polite line behavior), remember what type of lunch they are having, and use the technology correctly to report accurately if they brought a lunch from home or need one from the school.
For older kiddos we would have relay races to practice necessary material through out a lesson. Students would have the chance to move a bit and get energy out, and practice what they learned using game mechanics. This can be done for topics including, spelling words, math facts, parts of speech, counters or animal habitats.
There are so many ways game mechanics can be used in the classroom so I think it is important to remember that each classroom and day will be different and pick and implement different games depending how things are going in the room.
Great idea using games to teach every day tasks and behaviors like waiting in line and sharing! For the younger students especially, it's important for them to actually experience the behaviors we want from them, rather than them just listening to us say what we want them to do. I tend to get much better behavior from my students when we demonstrate both how to do things correctly and how to do them incorrectly.
ReplyDeleteI also love your idea of using games for teaching positive behaviors! It's motivating because it's different than how they've maybe learned them in the past. I also like the idea of using more physical games for older students to let them get excess energy out while still having them learn something. Great ideas!
ReplyDeleteErika,
ReplyDeleteI am also not yet teaching this year, so my post is notional but I feel like it is relevant with the other weekly topics. I think that everything we do this semester should be able to be brought into our classrooms and utilized. Always being able to come back to “How can we implement this successfully in our classroom” should be theme.
Josie
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DeleteHi Erika Sandor here...I can empathize as technically I am not in classroom either however I do a fair share of facilitating in training rooms. Your game ideas remind me of some of my favorite teacher in elementary school. The most memorable one were the ones that made everything fun! I especially like your understanding for the need for movement, often the kids or adults are shuffled from one "must do activity to another" and the kinesthetic movement piece so important to cognition is abbreviate or left out completely.
ReplyDeleteSome one once said "people don't always remember what you said but almost always remember hoe you made them feel!"
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