This one goes out to our educator friends! The school year is underway and educators everywhere are transforming their classrooms into engaging learning environments using the power of game-based learning. Want in on the fun? Your friendly neighborhood educational game developer is here to help. Let’s explore the latest and greatest from the world of educational gaming and how it can revolutionize your teaching approach.
via Tenor
Why Educational Games?
We’ve spoken before about the many reasons to love this pedagogical approach, but we think we’re due for a refresher. With the right games in place, a classroom can transform into an environment where students are excited to learn, actively participating, and retaining information like never before. High quality educational games deliver increased engagement and motivation, enhanced problem-solving skills, improved retention of information, and perhaps most importantly, cater to diverse learning styles.
Choosing the Right Games
So what makes a high quality educational game? And how do we find them? As educational game developers, we have ✨opinions.✨ (Which is why you can always check back here to see our round-ups of great games for students.) If you want to forge your own path though, consider these factors:
Curriculum Alignment
Many EDU-oriented games come with curriculum alignment recommended by their developers – like our curriculum alignment examples for RoboCo! If the game is made with classrooms even passingly in mind, it’s highly likely that the developer will provide this for your district’s chosen standards implementaton.
Age-appropriate Content and Difficulty
Our game-development model is “any age, any platform, any subject” because we recognize that games are versatile in the extreme, and can serve basically any kind of person if tuned correctly. Accordingly, when selecting games, pay attention to the demographic tuning of the title, paying close attention to whether it’s aiming at young learners, high school students, or even adults!
Technical Requirements
Technical considerations are a major part of any game development undertaking, but they also need to be weighed when considering games for implementation. Your classroom hardware is the constraint in this case – games selected for implementation need to work on whatever you’ve got, whether that’s the humble yet stalwart Chromebook or a full suite of XR headsets. Make sure you check those hardware requirements!
Learning Objectives
Many educational games have explicit learning objectives which you can use to align them to your classroom goals. For instance, our friends at iCivics provide lesson plans and curriculum units to help you make sure that the learning objectives for each lesson are met during the classroom session.
Games You Can Use Right Now
As we mentioned earlier, the Filament Games blog is a great spot to check out curated lists of games with educational value. Here’s just a few to get you started:
The Future of Learning
By integrating educational games into your classroom, you’re not just teaching – you’re preparing students for a digital future. You’re fostering skills like critical thinking, collaboration, and digital literacy that are essential in today’s world. Remember, in the world of game-based learning, both you and your students can level up together!
Looking to create your own educational game masterpiece? Contact us and let’s get the conversation started!