Benefits and Applications of Game-Based Learning
Are you a gamer? The term is modern, but no doubt you have played games at some point in your life. Whether it’s something as ancient as Chess or Go, childhood favorites like Sorry or Monopoly, favorite casino games like blackjack, or modern computer games like Call of Duty or Fortnite, games are part of the human experience. Games engage our thoughts, enable strategic thinking, and are just plain fun.
Game-based learning (not to be confused with gamification, which is the application of game elements to non-game environments like courses) is the practice of using games to teach concepts, behaviors, or skills. Games can be customized to a given subject or topic or adapted from other game genres to create environments for learning. As you look at your learning objectives, consider the types of games you could employ to give your learners a “competitive” advantage and an engaging structure for learning.
Board Games
Board games are the gaming experience that most people are familiar with, with classics like Monopoly and Risk being common favorites worldwide. While the lessons taught by these games lack direct application to real world situations, they do however demonstrate that board games are the simplest medium of stimulating learning in a game environment. In a classroom environment, board games can be designed to be competitive, team-based, or cooperative. Create games that put learners into situations where they will need to use the desired behaviors, skills, and knowledge to solve problems, think strategically, and apply skills to win the game. Board-style games can also be created for online environments, where learners participate as individuals (self-directed eLearning platforms) or in teams through collaboration tools (Sharepoint, Google, Slack, and many more). Let your creativity drive games that are fun, yet the by-product is the achievement of your learning outcomes.Role Playing Games (RPGs)
If you’re unfamiliar with the genre, think of classics like Dungeons and Dragons, The Legend of Zelda, or World of Warcraft. Immersive worlds where you create a character, kill monsters, level your skills, and save the princess. What’s particularly special about RPGs is they give you more freedom in how you overcome the obstacles that the game throws at you. For example, if you encounter a locked door you can pick it, bash it with force, or unlock it with a spell.
Due to their encouragement of creative problem solving and exploration, RPGs are definitely a step up from other games in terms of making players learn. They depend on:
● Persistent character progression (including player-exposed stats)
● Conflict or Challenge
● Choices and consequences
● Story
● Exploration
● Character building and customization
Making a full RPG is a monumental task that requires an enormous amount of time and effort that we don’t expect you to be able to commit to, but you can take RPG-like elements and apply them to your learning experiences.
For example, you can create worlds related to your industry or business. Create a role of a small business owner, or a customer, or a customer service rep. Learners could make character sheets, get points for certain strengths and weaknesses, earn rewards or levels for completing tasks, overcoming challenges, engaging with customers, making sales, and so much more.
As your learners’ progress through your course, the facilitator (or the computer programming) could play the game master (coach, Sr. Leader, mentor, etc) and reward them with experience points and track their progress. If the program is part of a larger training, these kinds of games could lend themselves to badging and leaderboards across all learners, making a fun and engaging learning experience.
Trading Card Games (TCGs)
Magic: the Gathering, Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!—let’s not sugarcoat it; all of these TCGs are horrendously complicated to outsiders. They require multiple layers of knowledge in order to succeed at, from a grasp of probability, to knowing the dense rules of the games themselves. These games are more strategic in nature, requiring players to create decks and confront opponents with head to head gameplay.
In terms of applying the principles of TCGs to your own learning experiences, you could drop the trading aspect of the games and just make a simple card game with TCG-like mechanics.
If you’re training project managers, for example, you could design a game that simulates the project management cycle, including hiring staff and assigning tasks, as well as the unexpected obstacles that are bound to crop up along the way. Make the objective a race for each player to complete their project by hitting a target score, and you have yourself a TCG-like game that mimics real life. As cards are selected and played, variability of conditions will require the players to make different decisions and address obstacles they face. These types of games address skills that implement strategic thinking and tactical planning, analysis and evaluation, and more complex engagement
Quiz Games
So familiar, yet so flexible in their application, quiz games are as varied as the hundreds of quiz-type game shows and mobile apps. They use questions as the main driver of gameplay, earning points and rewards along the way. Creating these for classroom environments and online learning is probably the most common learning game. Yet, with some creativity, you can breathe new life into them. New formats, varying engagements with learners, and employment of multimedia or social learning invite learners to engage with content differently.
Quiz games must connect with your learning objectives as with the other game types. If you have application-based objectives, don’t resort to questions in your quiz games that are all memorizations. Have learners do something, perform a task, exhibit a behavior, demonstrate a skill. Drive your outcomes by having learners be active in the process, not just passive participants.
Conclusion
One time, I developed a highly interactive game to teach a very complex subject. During the class, a corporate director walked by the classroom, hearing yelling and laughing. He approached me later asking me, “What are you doing in these classes? This is not kindergarten!” Without justifying the activity, I invited him to the next class, where he saw for himself the power of game-based learning. He even commented that he learned things about the subject that he had not realized in his 30-year career.
While it is easy to dismiss games as a pleasant pastime rather than having any productive potential, there are definitely lessons to be learned from the way they teach. Explore more about game-based learning and even into game theory. Get a feel for what genres you like, play them yourself, and then seek to apply these ideas into our classes and courseware. Game on!