Classroom Norms To Set The Stage

I have had the pleasure of working in classrooms from K-College in almost every subject. The diversity of style, mannerisms, comfort levels and attitude are as deep as one could imagine. As students come through our doors, it is important to explicitly state expectations and standards the teacher has in place. I plan do just that in this entry. I will layout options and assumptions I will be running with. If people comment that they have other options they wish me to include, I will make every effort to include how other options may look and feel in our activities with students.

Access to technology varies quite a bit. Here in Maine, our students are very blessed in that almost every school in our state provides some level of one-to-one computing. Access to computers and technology is so important that all motels and hotels in the state offer free Internet access and even most of our rest areas on the highway offer free Internet access. Clearly, not all readers will enjoy such opportunities. I will be assuming that there is at least one computer in the classroom with access to a printer and a projector. I will include notes for various configurations, but most of my resources are set up for the 1:1 environment, but I am hopeful that all teachers can incorporate suggestions in this blog independent of access to technology. As always, post questions about modifications in the comments of any post and I will respond with opinions and options.

Class size is another variable that varies widely. Some classrooms may have as few as 5 or 6 students while others are swamped with 30+. I am going to run on the assumption that most classrooms are in the 15-25 range. As the number of students in class increases, it is more vital that structure be adhered to in order to keep a positive flow going. Interestingly, I have found that having less than 10 students results in challenges that might be harder to overcome, especially with socially interactive exchanges.

A third variable relates to hobbies and interests. When someone mentions “games” there are some standards people may think of, such as sports, checkers, chess, tic-tac-toe ...As the author, I get to choose which games get focus by default. I will be presenting simulations, game construction tools, social interaction games and many other constructive materials teachers can extend to create positive learning opportunities. Many of my suggestions will be digitally online but there will be some offline options offered as well. For all online resources, I will be assuming that the teacher only has access to one computer in the classroom and guidelines will be provided to maximize that access. As always, if you have a request for me to include a type of game or theme or content to connect to, just leave some details in the comments and I will run with it.

One last variable is the cost of games. The Red Green fan in me thrives on the joy of finding new uses for free stuff and some duct tape. As such, most of the resources I share are all free and available on any computer that can run current browsers. Keeping browsers current is key to enjoying many free resources out there for educators. Unfortunately, not all computer technology teams in schools have an easy time ensuring that school computer browsers are updated often. There will be a game or two offline that I will suggest and offer lessons around. Those games often come out of the hot-bed of today’s gaming world, the European style games. While many in North America are absorbed in purely digital games, there is a growing offline game culture in Europe that is very refreshing to see. These games may run $50 to $100 at times which teachers may find daunting. I have had luck holding a bake sale just to get a new game.

Next post I will be introducing an online game for our exploration. My catalog of games to explore is quite vast. It would be helpful to hear comments on the first few entries so I could get a gauge of what subjects/levels people are working with to help me determine the most effective launching point. Lacking that information, I will be starting in with a simulation. Your question for this post is for you to make a choice. Would you rather start with a business simulation or a basketball simulation? Please rationalize your choice in terms of your students and why you feel one choice would be better for your batch of students.

Journals and teaching students to reflect.

The ability to introspect and reflect is something that needs to be cultivated in most people. You may ask a number of people, “What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?” and get fairly quick and concise responses. Ask those same people, “Why is ____ your favorite flavor?” and you will immediately be able to gauge how well your population of people can reflect.

Education needs to be an active process. A process in which the student is assessing what is known and what still is unclear so that the student can then plan for some action to resolve those unclear items. The first step of creating active students is to teach them to be able to reflect on how they are thinking, what is their rational, what are their feelings and what are their values around almost any topic. This is typically not something most students are comfortable with processing and may find even more difficulty in communicating. One of the safest ways to help students start communicating is with a journal. This may be a written journal, a verbal journal, or even a video journal.

Many teachers that have tried to introduce journaling have quickly encountered difficulties in getting students to provide verbose and relevant responses to teacher prompts. Remember that students will be trying to learn how to mentally reflect on your prompts and they will be learning how to communicate those thoughts. Both actions can be difficult. I would suggest you start with a concentration on the journaling and slowly ramp up the quality of the student responses. Most importantly, teachers will want to create instances in which the processing done in the journal are needed to resolve later problems or issues.

I offer the following sample journal template you could use for a first session with students. This is a google document. If you are familiar with google documents you can click on File - Make Copy to have a copy of this form available for you to use. If you are setup to have students using google documents, you can make multiple copies of this journal and just rename each file with the student’s name and then use the sharing settings to share with each student. Of course you can print out the forms as well, but I would suggest adding more lines in each answer box to allow for students to provide full responses.

In this sample journal entry, the goal is to get students thinking about what they value in games and how those values compare and contrast to students in the class. Begin the session by having students think about the games they like best to play. Try to get them to extend to 3-5 games and they can be digital or offline games. Then have them record what they value most about those games using the first prompt in the Journal.

Next students will circulate (make sure you state a given time and call out a count down at half way, ¾ way and last 15 seconds) quickly comparing their three values with those of others to determine how many students match them at all. If there is a match how many values are similar. Have students get re-seated and do a quick go around to see how many found at least one other that had 3 matches the same, how many only 2, 1? Then provide them a short time to revise their three values to adapt their previous thinking to account from all the input they just received from peers.

Now armed with data and experiences, the teacher poses the real problem for this activity. What is the best method of grouping students if the ultimate situation would be 5 students in each group. Collect all the responses and share with students that you will look over the suggestions and present next class the most popular options for the class to decide on.

This lesson is not about academics, nor is it even really content oriented, but it will create a first experience of Reflect - Act - Reflect - Process - Evaluate. In future entries we can pose an essential question, then have students “play” to collect data and then use that data to construct responses and process issues. Given this kind of experience, the teacher can then tie the experience into more traditional lecture content that takes advantage of the “What if..?” excitement generated.

Since no one responded to the question posed in the last post, I will offer a more simple quandary. You may have heard the expression, “The squeaky wheel gets the most grease.” Please indicate general subjects you with to see demonstrated in future entries. My natural inclination is towards the Mathematics end of things as so little exists out there for higher level mathematics “play”. Every entry I will try to include little suggestions for subjects and for different grade levels, but unless I receive suggested content and grade level requests, I will probably stick to high school level mathematics. So, if you want other content or grade levels included, or if you want to ensure I stick with concentrations in mathematics or high school, this is your time to speak up :) Please offer your comments and suggestions.

Introduction to game-based learning

Introduction to game based learning

Hands on activities and lessons to get students learning through game play and game study.

Using games in a classroom is a practice that many teachers have employed from time to time in their career. These games are often part of a review before a test, a method of drill and practice, or as some reward or extension. Each of these three types of implementation are quite easy to set up or find resources for and many teachers feel that adopting one of these three options will suddenly increase learning for their students. Sadly, this is not the case. Student motivation may spike for a brief time, but little research supports any significant gains when games are used for review, practice, or reward. There is a growing body of research that indicates that teaching concepts through game play and exploration within game mechanics does have positive effects on student learning. There are many resources sharing these findings and I will post some of those from time to time on this blog. For starters you may want to read up on what game based learning is and is not.

Many teachers have bought into the idea of using games to instruct or to help students formulate concepts or develop procedures only to find that the available resources for such game implementation are not accessible. This blog will attempt to expose teachers to specific lesson and activities that use free games to help students learn. It is not enough to just point a student towards a game and say, "Go play and learn now squirt." There are very specific preparation steps needed to ensure that all students can learn with games. In each of these blog entries I will be sharing strategies and tips on how to get your students started with game based learning activities. 

With every blog entry I will be posing some questions to start off discussions. Feel free to drop your ideas in the comments area. For this first post, I would like to learn more about the readers in terms of subjects you teach. 

Could you please respond to the following: 

If you were to implement game based learning into a part of your instructional day, what specific topic or unit of study do you feel would be safest for you to use as a trial run? Please explain what this topic or unit encompasses and why you feel it would be safest for experimentation with game based learning?