3 minutes
Learning through play is an educational methodology that uses games and/or video games in the classroom to learn content and competencies, and for teachers to assess them.
Although both use games as an educational resource, this teaching method should not be confused with educational gamification. Unlike the latter, learning through play introduces a game into class, often designed for educational purposes, with the intention of providing students with learning through participation.
The pleasure of playing
The writer Johan Huizinga defined play as:
A free action or activity carried out within certain limits of time and space, according to absolutely binding but freely accepted rules, having its aim in itself and accompanied by a feeling of tension and joy and the awareness of being different from ordinary life.
This cultural perspective, of great historical importance in its field, was later complemented by constructivist psychologist Jean Piaget, who considered play the main way children develop new mental structures. This aspect was also studied by psychologist Lev Vygotski, with whom he shared theories of cognitive development.
Play is a source of pleasure that, through meaningful learning, allows participants to learn thanks to the motivation it generates. This is because motivation entails greater effort from those who feel it and, at the same time, an increase in their ability to persist in the game and pay closer attention to everything related to it.
The brain's secretion of oxytocin, dopamine, or serotonin is considered highly motivating, which is why participants find it easy to engage in activities based on this methodology.
What requirements must a classroom game meet to be considered part of game-based learning?
- The game's educational purpose must be clear and unambiguous. Otherwise, it can become just a game, which, despite its pleasurable qualities, undermines this methodology's main objective: improving students' learning.
- The game must appeal to students, something often difficult to achieve in games designed for educational purposes, since they usually have fewer resources than those intended for recreation.
- Players must be able to progress, requiring them to overcome one or more obstacles or levels to determine whether students have indeed absorbed the knowledge they were intended to acquire.
In today's educational environment, students become, to some extent, ultimately responsible for their own learning. Their ability to overcome the challenges posed by the game allows them to take in the knowledge they are meant to learn. This is possible only if they respond actively to the motivation the game offers and encourage collaboration with other students, with whom, if the game allows it, they can participate jointly to achieve a more satisfying result.
As often happens with these methodologies, the teacher's role also changes from the more or less usual role of transmitting knowledge in the classroom. In an educational situation guided by this methodology, teachers become companions who, despite the sometimes difficult adoption of this new role, must plan the steps their students' learning process should follow and the objectives to be achieved through implementation.
Tips for implementing learning through play
It is best to use games you know well and that are practical for teaching the topic you want to teach.
If this methodology uses video games, do not fear the so-called digital divide, which splits the population into two theoretical halves: those who have grown up alongside Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and should therefore theoretically be better able to control them, and a second half who, because of their older age, do not know how to use these technologies. Remember that games and video games know no age limits and that, when it comes to the content to be taught, teachers remain indispensable to this process.