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MIKE FARLEY: My name is Mike Farley.
I've been teaching Geography for 14 years now.
I have been at UTS for seven years where I've taught anywhere from grade 7
to 11 Geography.
For me, technology is a means of engaging students,
because they genuinely love to work with computers and digital media.
But even more, I see technology as allowing
new kinds of activities or opportunities for students
to think about important issues, such as climate change, natural disasters,
human migration, and economic disparity.
For example, digital games, if they are developed thoughtfully,
can be integrated into classroom lessons to promote deep and impactful learning.
I have been using digital games in my classes since 2005,
and in 2013 I founded the organization Change Gamer.
Change Gamer promotes the use of game-based learning mainly
by creating and disseminating curriculum for existing games.
All of our free resources are created by teachers
and tested with students at University of Toronto schools before being shared.
A game that I've been using recently is called
"Fort McMoney," which is part documentary and part digital game.
"Fort McMoney" gives players a deep look into the boom town Fort McMurray
in Alberta that has experienced rapid growth due to the highly controversial
adjacent Oil Sands project.
You play the role of an investigative reporter who can interview over
50 residents of the town, some who are very much in favor of the Oil Sands,
some who are against, and a multitude of perspectives in between.
By engaging in the game, students get to experience
many dimensions of the Oil Sands economy and culture, including
some of the more nuanced issues, such as homelessness, addiction, and gender
that often get left out of the debate.
These are interesting and important cultural issues.
Of course, there are serious challenges in developing
any curriculum around games, or any other technology for that matter.
It all sounds fine on paper, or in a professional development course,
but I think most teachers know that technology can cause problems, too.
And there's not any guarantee that students will learn.
First, I have to actually develop the curriculum, including lesson plans
and assessments, which means thinking about what students
will be doing with which technologies and what I want them to get out of it.
Also, how you'll be able to measure their learning
for purposes of assessment.
Next, I have to make sure that I have access to the technology,
including updated computers and internet access.
This last part sounds trivial, but it is crucial
that everything goes smoothly or students quickly grown impatient.
It is also very important that you have a clear plan
and that you have regular stopping points where
you engage them for discussion.
When using games with the students, one pitfall
is that students sometimes lose sight of the important issues at hand
and instead focus simply on getting a high score
or find loopholes and ways to cheat the game.
To mitigate this, it is important that I provide enough scaffolding and context
for the issues being explored in the game in order to set the proper tone
and provide the right motivations for students to play the game.
This can be done by using any combination of tools,
such as discussion, research, films, and/or
readings before playing the game.
If the students are in a web-based game or using the internet for any purpose,
it is crucial to remember that there are risks and distractions,
and I always have to remind my students that I
can track their activity through my teacher computer
and that all of their activities are being logged by the central school
server.
I make it clear that I will not tolerate any inappropriate materials
or interactions.
Parents trust the schools to keep their kids safe,
and by letting them onto the internet, I am
taking responsibility for their safety.
At the same time, this is an opportunity to help
them learn together in a safe environment about important topics
such as navigating the internet, constructive research,
and how to engage productively with peers in online environments.
I am always learning how to improve these kinds of lessons,
revising my lesson plans and assessments to improve students' engagement
and learning.
I enjoy talking with small groups and looking in on their game play.
This actually lets me learn about how students think
and what they find interesting or challenging.
I also frequently pause a class and facilitate a class discussion
to check in on how the students are doing with the game.
I feel that my interactions with the students in these large and small group
discussions are crucial to their learning.
Digital games frequently put students in the middle of very complex situations
where they're making key decisions themselves.
This allows them to better understand multiple perspectives and the pros
and cons associated with any approach.
I have used game-based learning with students working at every level,
including ESL and special education classes.
I think one of the great benefits of digital games
is that they promote healthy failure.
I rarely see students getting frustrated with games, even though 99% of time
technically they fail at the game.
Usually they just dive back in and try a different approach until something
finally works.
Students can work at their own pace, and my expectations
for what they can complete varies with the level of the student
am I working with.
An important part of game-based learning is
in making sure that the games actually line up with the curriculum
that you're working with and the expectations that you
are hoping the students will achieve.
One of the great things is that there's a wide variety of games available
that can be easily used in many subject areas,
so I'm careful to make sure the games I use line up
with the curriculum expectations.
And most of the lessons posted on the Change Gamer site
include curriculum-related activities to do before, during,
and after the game play.
The lessons frequently incorporate diagnostic, formative, and/or summative
assessments related to the games.
In terms of some of the more pragmatic concerns in using game-based learning,
one of the main things is that I recommend that teachers
start with free browser-based games.
The main advantages of this are that you don't
have to convince your school administration to spend any money,
you don't have to worry about special permissions for downloads,
and students can easily play the games either at school
or outside the classroom, for example, at home or at the local library.
Over 90% of the 40 or so games on the Change Gamer
site are free and browser-based.
This removes a lot of potential headaches.
In addition, I highly recommend that teachers
spend a good chunk of time playing the game themselves before using them
with their classes.
This is the same advice that any teacher would
give in terms of using any material, whether it be a book or a movie.
You always want to know what you're dealing with before you actually
use it with the students.
In terms of concerns that a teacher can have about game-based learning
and what students might be getting up to,
the one very positive thing I've found about game-based learning
is that students rarely stray away from the games as they're playing.
They tend to be very, very focused and engaged in what they're doing.
But of course, it's always important that in whatever way you can,
you can monitor what they're actually doing.
In terms of classroom management skills or specific tricks
that I've learned about using games in the classroom,
the one would be not to provide too much instruction
about how to play the games beforehand with students.
Sometimes students can get bogged down with those instructions,
and as I was talking about previously, one
of the big benefits of game-based learning
is it's a very safe place to fail.
So a lot of times now I give a very brief context of the game itself,
but I let them just kind of jump into the deep end and management from there.
Another skill that more recently I've been employing
is having the students play the game in either pairs or groups of three.
And this gets them to slow down a little bit, as opposed
to just clicking through.
And that can help to stop against the pitfall of just trying
to get a high score.
Every decision that they make during the game,
they have to negotiate with someone else or maybe even a couple other people.
And it encourages kind of a creative friction
or a healthy debate about what the best way to proceed
or the best options to choose in a game are.
Finally, another trick that I build into the lessons for game-based learning
is to have some type of critique of the game built into the lesson at the end.
Students are very savvy when it comes to games and various different types
of game mechanics or game research.
and they actually have a lot to say about that.
They have a lot to say about the pros and cons of a game,
and that can really help me move forward in using the games in a more
constructive way moving forward.
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