October 20, 2023, 3:49 pm | Read time: 5 minutes
Digital innovations also present challenges for parents. Kids prefer to be on their phones or computers rather than learning. But what if these elements could be combined?
Parents regularly face crises. In their view, kids are constantly glued to their smartphones. Instead of watching funny videos for hours or gaming all day, adults wish for more study time and school engagement. However, a pilot project in North Rhine-Westphalia and Berlin has shown that video games can encourage children to learn across subjects. The initiator of “Games Make School” is the Berlin-based Digital Games Culture Foundation.
In Berlin, ten schools with 16 eighth-grade classes participated. A total of 400 students were allowed to game for science. The focus was on the subjects of German, English, mathematics, and history.
Learning with Video Games
For this, the Digital Games Culture Foundation developed special curricula. The teaching materials were created by experts from the University of Education in Freiburg. The center for didactic computer game research there has maintained a database of games particularly suitable for classroom use for some time.
For the project, the experts selected the following video games:
- German: A Normal Lost Phone
- English: Gone Home
- Mathematics: Mario Kart Tour
- History: Brass
The curricula developed for each subject and game were associated with various goals. Simply gaming would have been about as meaningful as watching TV all day without commentary and calling it media education.
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Teachers Praise the Project
The surprising result: 71 percent of teachers report to the Digital Games Culture Foundation a high level of motivation among the entire student body. At first glance, the result may not be particularly surprising.
However, the teachers involved in the project almost unanimously report that the students found easier access to certain subjects and learning through video games. This was particularly noticeable among students who had previously been rather shy and reserved in class.
However, teachers have different assessments of the usefulness of the four games selected for the project. The experts from the University of Education in Freiburg deliberately chose games that are more for entertainment.
Praise and Criticism for Game Selection
For example, some history teachers doubt whether their class actually learned anything about industrialization and its historical impacts from the game “Brass,” according to the Digital Games Culture Foundation. Nevertheless, other skills were developed that are helpful for other subjects. Problems or tasks that arose in the game were solved together by the students, according to the project report. This ability helps in every school subject later on.
Ironically, the designated entertainment game “Mario Kart Tour” was rated particularly positively by all teachers. The math aspect of this game involved training skills in statistics and probability. The mere mention of these terms would typically cause most students to fall asleep spontaneously in a regular class. However, in connection with Super Mario, enthusiasm for these topics knows no bounds.
Most gamers probably never noticed: In “Mario Kart Tour,” competitors encounter certain items like turtle shells, turbo mushrooms, or banana peels. These items don’t appear randomly but according to a certain probability. Notably, the leading racers receive “bad” items more frequently. The participating classes of “Games Make School” can now recite the appropriate calculations in their sleep. At the same time, everyone involved had a lot of fun developing the formula alongside gaming.
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IT Reality in Schools is Below Average
Due to the positive experiences, the teachers involved in the project also wish for a stronger integration of video games into teacher training. Eighty-five percent have expressed support for this, reports the Digital Games Culture Foundation.
Currently, such plans fail due to the IT reality in most schools. In many cases, there is a lack of suitable educators. However, during the project, it became apparent that the technical conditions at many schools are inadequate to poor.
In some cases, teachers had to use private computers. The devices provided by the school do not allow such games to be installed. Additionally, there was often a lack of a suitable network connection. Here, too, teachers had to help out with private routers.
How Video Games Can Help with Learning
The gaming industry has long focused on school education. The popular sandbox game “Minecraft” has had a school platform with special worlds for classroom use for some time. The action-adventure series “Assassin’s Creed” offers so-called Discovery Tours. These allow players to experience and play through certain historical epochs. Besides gaming, students get a bit of knowledge-to-go. Recently, the strategy game “Through the Darkest of Times” has been gaining attention. In it, the gamer takes on the role of a leader of a resistance group during the Nazi era.
The game has received positive feedback for its realism. Players often find themselves in situations where there is no “right” or “best” solution. Even though the horrors of the Nazi dictatorship remain only virtually experienceable in this case. A tip for teachers: Tobias Hübner works as a teacher for German and religion. Through his blog “Medienistik,” he regularly provides free teaching materials and guides on how to use computers and video games effectively in the classroom.