Discussion ~ All of My Expression

6.1 Questions raised and some assumptions challenged

the study suggests that we need to pay closer attention to the specifi c features of games play which encourage student engagement – whether this is the degree to which children enjoy having fl uid and autonomous control over a responsive environment, or the extent to which it is the enjoyment of using games familiar from home and leisured play in which they can demonstrate expertise. What is clear is that we need to move beyond the generalisation that children ‘are motivated by’ playing computer games, towards a more nuanced understanding of exactly what in games play is motivating in order to best understand how to engender such engagement in the classroom.

It is far from clear to us, now, that the curriculum itself is the primary barrier to the use of games in school. Instead, we would suggest that the successful use of such games is, unsurprisingly, a reflection of the quality of teaching. Namely, the extent to which the teachers were:

able to accurately judge their students’ abilities
clear about the educational objectives they were hoping to achieve
effective in deploying the games resources in meeting these objectives.

the Teaching with Games study has highlighted the rich and complex context into which computer games are introduced when they are appropriated within schools. We suggest that, as with any form of curriculum innovation, particularly around the use of technology, the following factors all play a role in shaping how teachers conceptualise the potential use of games in school and how they are able to implement these ideas in lessons:

the technical infrastructure of the school (including personnel and facilities)
institutional and professional factors (including the organisation of time and space in the school, cultures of collaboration/knowledge sharing, traditions of ‘best practice’ in lesson planning, and classroom rituals)
the extent to which games can be ‘disaggregated’ and appropriated to meet specific needs the individual teachers’ personal experience of games play, and their personal and professional identities as teachers
the pervading cultural expectations of children’s attitudes to and expertise in playing computer games.

We hope that by highlighting these different factors which shape how teachers might appropriate games in schools we have offered a richer and more complex picture to both policy makers and developers interested in exploring the potential use of games in education. Encouragingly, although it has been noted that in this kind of research games rarely continue to feature in teaching once the project has ended, three of the participating teachers are using revised versions of their games-based lesson plans over the next year, and more have expressed an interest in using games in their teaching in the future.

6.2 Practical Recommendation

For teachers

Teachers should ensure that they are clear about the learning objectives they are intending to achieve over the course of a scheme of work, and identify the precise role to be played by using the game in achieving these.
Games do not have to be used in their entirety in order to support educational goals and stimulate student motivation – in some cases, certain elements of games can be extracted and used productively in isolation from the game as a whole.
Teachers should allow sufficient time for both them and their students to become familiar with the game – this may be more time than initially expected.
Time for encouraging reflection and review of games-based activities needs to be systematically built into lesson plans, with contingency set aside for technical issues that may emerge during games play.
Working with ‘expert’ student groups may be beneficial in developing new approaches to teaching and learning. However care should be taken to ensure that these experts are supported and confident in playing this role in the classroom.

For schools

Teachers benefit from support in order to use games effectively for teaching – support from technical staff is essential, and support from other teachers working on the same problems is desirable.
It may be desirable to develop greater flexibility in timetabling and organisation of lessons in order to allow teachers to fully explore the potential of working with games over longer periods of time.
Schools could do more to encourage cultures of collaboration, promoting the benefits to teachers of working with professional peers, as well as providing the means to facilitate this.

Author

Ahoy, It is me Triska. A college student of English Education Department in University of Singaperbangsa Karawang. I am a-pixie-dust-enthusiast. I love to watch a movie or Korean Drama and also love to write my blog.