An educational process can be thought as encouraging our students to discover, research, experiment, analyse, and reflect.
In some cases we need to try harder to engage and motivate students. Games can help increase both and provide sustained attention to task.(Huda’s class)
The idea is to start mapping out the parts of the process in which a game could play an important role for a whole class or for particular learners :
A game can introduce a concept and help the students discover something interesting they want to know more about. It can be a venue for finding out more about a certain phenomenon, a principle, an event, or a person (Eric’s class and Paul’s class).
It can be a platform for experimentation and interaction with something they couldn’t normally interact with (Jon’s class, Paola’s class).
”I thought that it would be an innovative way to work on consolidating knowledge. I did not know what to expect and I wanted to experiment. I was curious about how the students would react. It turned out that the students had a good knowledge of computer technology and were able to quickly launch their imagination while learning Spanish language skills and discussing them in pairs. Positively surprised. (Paola’s class)
So we need to select a game based on the child’s needs and in many cases the curriculum constraints (Tom’s class).
Backed by research evidence, there are some lessons we drew from our project to be found.