When attempting to incorporate games in current teaching practice, we considered the question: what roles should teachers take on?
We agree and found similar results with two studies carried out using the game MinecraftEdu in Swedish schools which showed different roles that the teachers play throughout the process of using the games in the classroom (Marklund & Taylor 2016). They found that teacher would serve as
Gaming anchor aiming to support students’ digital play experiences; here teacher– developer ‘skills may be needed.
Authority and enforcer, in charge of redirecting students who become distracted back to educational- focus play; and
Subject matter anchor, trying to maintain the established subject matter.
But the most important role is that of
Facilitator: tackling all the problems and helping students complete game playing as well as routine learning. In the process of facilitating, various techniques would be adopted by different teachers including giving examples, providing scaffolding and raising questions and for children with SEN ‘prompting’ which is explained under Strategies and SEN.