Dungeons and Dragons
in Education
What is game-based learning?
Game-based learning is an approach to teaching that is designed to balance subject material with gameplay.
Students explore learning concepts in the form of gameplay. When implementing game-based learning, it is important to consider the following forms of engagement: Affective, behavioral, cognitive, and social/cultural.
Affective: Focuses on the emotions and beliefs of the the learners. This aspect is very important as it lays a sort of foundation for the learning experience for the learners and feeds into the behavioral, cognitive, and social/cultural aspects of game design as well.
Behavioral: This focuses on learners’ motivation and engagement with the material. It has been thought that games have a way of interesting people and keep people engaged for longer periods of time due to incentives whether that be in the form of gold stars, medals, points, or trophies.
Cognitive: Cognitive focuses on how learners think, reason, and remember. In short, how information is processed. The concept of play pushes learners to develop symbolic thinking through being exposed to various representations of reality. Ex: A child can pretend a box is a race car while knowing it is not an actual car. Game-based learning pushes for students to seek out deeper meaning through interacting within the game’s context.
Social/Cultural: Inclusion of social engagement with peers. There is focus on learning through participating in groups and using collective knowledge to accomplish a goal. Integrating cultural and social influences the learners’ self-perception as well as their perception of others.
When implementing game-based learning or any sort games in the classroom, it is important to consider the WHO, WHAT, and WHY-- The three 'WH' questions.
Before planning, consider WHO your learners are and WHAT gets them interested. Game-based learning is often used as a means to engage students in class activities.
However, rather than playing a game for the sake of playing a game, you have to think about WHY they are playing this game and WHAT they are supposed to learn. Think of objectives the students are supposed to meet and incorporate them into the game design.
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Why use game-based learning?
Game-based learning, at its core, is geared toward teaching through repetition, failure, and accomplishment of goals. Students work towards a goal, choose actions to complete objectives, and experience the consequences for their actions in a controlled, safe environment. Incorporating games into the classroom allows students to explore and apply concepts they have learned in a low-stakes setting.