Meet 10 Innovative Educators Using Game-Based Learning

The NEA Foundation’s commitment to ensuring that educators have a say in new instructional strategies lives in our use of crowdsourcing on the Department of Education’s Open Innovation Portal. Continuing our multi-year partnership with the Department of Education, we recently teamed with Microsoft Partners in Learning to tap educators’ best ideas on how gaming can be integrated into curriculum. We learned that when given a chance to voice their thoughts on how to effectively use gaming to engage students in learning, educators have an unlimited number of ideas.

What follows are the 10 best ideas— as selected by the C2i community and a panel of experts, from a pool of more than 150 submissions. Each of the top 10 innovators will receive a $1,000 award from the NEA Foundation.

Adeline M. Bee, Attleboro High School, Attleboro, MA

Bee’s proposal for “Crime Scene Reporter” hinges on best practices drawn from journalism. Bee envisions a computer game allowing students to travel to historic or imaginary crime scenes and act as reporters or investigators. Students would interview witnesses, victims, police officers, and others. If they fail to ask enough in-depth questions, they cannot proceed to the next level. At the end, these cub reporters would write a full article to describe their findings. Whether historical or fiction, each scenario has the potential to expose students to historic events, like the John F. Kennedy assassination, or to literary giants, like Edgar Allen Poe.

“Students want more hands-on materials, teachers want more creative teaching techniques, and businesses want more highly skilled graduates; all of this can be achieved if the gaming industry teams up with innovative educators.”

Read Bee’s full proposal.

John V. Binzak, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA

Biznak’s role-playing game would take elementary science classes on an in-flight journey as a young bird following migration routes and discovering ecosystems, habitats, food chains, and life cycles along the way. “Friends of a Feather,” would allow students to use a field book to draw diagrams of food chains, conduct comparative analysis of divergent species, chart changes between ecosystems, and more. Biznak intends for the game to be in a web-based, PC format that is also compatible with tablet and phone applications.

“A video game…can transport a child’s mind into the different ecosystems, so they can interact with the organisms they discover. … Students must accomplish missions that involve identifying, befriending, and helping the different species of animals and birds in the area.”

Read Biznak’s full proposal.

Kimberly Brown, Signal Mountain Middle School, Chattanooga, TN

Brown’s “Curriculum APPlications” challenges her students to identify popular gaming apps, like Angry Birds, that accurately exemplify a certain property of physics or other science concept they are studying. Students then create mini-posters to be displayed on the classroom’s “leader board,” and receive points based on their written explanation of the concept and how it appears in the game.

“Because students love to compete in online games and interactive phone apps, any way of incorporating those activities into the fabric of the classroom is sure to engage students and create an interest in content learning.”

Read Brown’s full proposal.

Melanie Dolifka, Falcon Elementary School of Technology, Peyton, CO

Dolifka’s innovative idea, titled, “Challenge the World,” involves opening up “World Math Day,” a three-day global competition in which her students currently compete, to more students in more subject areas. Dolifka proposes a year-round competition available to school systems across the globe on a variety of topics. The game could be played on an interactive white board or video gaming consoles. He believes the format and function of the gaming platform has the potential to help American students recognize the need to stay competitive with other nations’ students.

“This medium would offer instructors a way to make reviewing for a test engaging and effective. … The friendly competition would motivate and engage students in learning, while helping to build their understanding of other cultures around the world.”

Read Dolifka’s full proposal.

Michael A. Evans, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA

Evans and a team of researchers developed “The Candy Factory,” a sweet app prototype for iPads, iPods, and iPhones, to allow sixth grade algebra students to use candy bars to learn how to divide and multiply fractions. Students are asked to partition a whole candy bar into an equal number of parts, then iterate one of those parts the appropriate number of times. The game relies on current research outlining engagement states, including: sustained attention, withholding of a dominant response to perform a non-dominate response, and short-term memory.

“Initial results indicate that the game achieves intended goals, scaffolding learners in their development of appropriate mental actions, while engaging with game mechanics.”

Read Evans’ full proposal.

Andrew Miller, ASCO/Buck Institute for Education, Tacoma, WA

Miller proposes translating lessons from existing game-based civics learning tools, like the game iCivics, into real-world action or authentic assessment. Students would learn about certain laws through the gaming interface and then write recommendations or petition local governments about the policies addressed. Miller says this process takes the learning out of the game and into the classroom, to an authentic audience, and provides a way for teachers to couple instruction with assessment. He stresses the need for common core and content standards to be present in the games and linked to assessment. 

“By presenting students with an authentic task, a ‘need to know’ is created, where students are solicited for the ideas, content, and skills they need to know, thereby driving the inquiry.”

Read Miller’s full proposal.

Soumya D. Mohanty, University of Texas at Brownsville, Brownsville, TX

Commercial video games hold significant educational value, according to Mohanty, who has introduced a course that uses software packages called, “physics engines,” that can be plugged into games to simulate the physical behavior of objects. His class learns to recognize the effect of gravity on motion, ray-optics, or velocity and force. Multi-player skateboarding games, for example, illustrate the vector nature of force or trajectories. Mohanty believes commercial games allow his students to grapple with real-world manifestations of concepts that can be abstract or difficult to comprehend when presented in textbook format.

“The teaching and learning of physics is a natural first step because commercial game developers already rely on physics extensively to increase the appeal of their games. Instructors of physics simply need to know how to tap into this existing resource.”

Read Mohanty’s full proposal.

Brendan Noon, Williamson High School, Williamson, NY

For a decade, Noon has been developing a website that would allow students from across the nation to compete in a weekly game show format, similar to “Jeopardy” or “Family Feud.” The program would incorporate a variety of technologies, from classroom remote control “clickers” to popular gaming platforms and video quizzes. A nation-wide database would aggregate students’ scores and achievements, and prizes and awards could be distributed to high-achieving students.

“Students can take formal assessments in a game-based, interactive environment and have their scores placed in a database to measure growth and reward achievement.”

Read Noon’s full proposal.

Gerol C. Petruzella, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, North Adams, MA

“Dungeons & Discourse,” a collegiate take on the popular “Dungeons & Dragons” board game, introduces the major branches of philosophy through an immersive role-playing game. Students explore a fictional world through a variety of quests and guild memberships, applying philosophy theories as they play. Petruzella sees it as a way to help students prepare the thinking skills necessary to achieve the most “epic wins” against the real-life global challenges they will face in the future.

“This course engages students in the critical investigation and reflective analysis of such fundamental philosophical questions as freedom and moral responsibility, the nature of being and knowledge, and individual rights and social justice.”

Read Petruzella’s full proposal.

Kathryn Thomas, Windber Area Middle School, Windber, PA

Thomas’ idea, “Learn to Earn: Game-Based Learning,” creates a game from incentive-driven applications, such as online games, student responders, electronic devices, podcasts, and more, to help students have fun while they learn math concepts. The game, which lasts nine weeks, has 10 levels, in which students earn points in order to advance and receive rewards. Points can be earned by getting a good grade on a test, completing a computer math game, or participating at the classroom’s SMART Board.

“Game-based learning has given me more time to teach concepts and content … I am covering more in class by removing problems with behavior and motivation.”

Read Thomas’ full proposal.