Game+Based+Learning

__//**Games Based Learning**//__ What can we learn from the gaming world and transfer to the classroom to help keep kids engaged? How do gaming and scenario-based learning with role playing help students understand at a higher level and you to achieve Quadrant-D Learning?

**Why Games & Learning ** The meaning of knowing today has shifted from being able to **recall and repeat** information to being able to **find it, evaluate it and use it compellingly at the right time and in the right context.** Education in the early part of the twentieth century tended to focus on the **acquisition of basic skills and content knowledge**, like reading, writing, calculation, history or science. Many experts believe that success in the twenty-first century depends on education that treats **higher order skills, like the ability to think, solve complex problems or interact critically through language and media.** **Games** naturally support this form of education. They are designed to create a compelling complex problem space or world, which players come to understand through self-directed exploration. They are scaffolded to deliver just-in-time learning and to use data to help players understand how they are doing, what they need to work on and where to go next. Games create a compelling need to know, a need to ask, examine, assimilate and master certain skills and content areas. Some experts argue that //**games are, first and foremost, learning systems**//, and that this accounts for the sense of engagement and entertainment players experience. There are other attributes of games that facilitate learning. One of these is the state of being known as **play**. Much of the activity of play consists in failing to reach the goal established by a game’s rules. And yet **players rarely experience this failure as an obstacle to trying again and again, as they work toward mastery.** There is something in play that gives players permission to **take risks** considered outlandish or impossible in “real life.” **There is something in play that activates the tenacity and persistence required for effective learning.** __There are three key moments in game play with important implications for learning: __
 * The first is when a would-be player approaches a game and expresses a wish to participate: “Can I try? Can I join in?”
 * The second moment comes when a player asks, “Can I save it?” In other words, “I’m deeply invested in this experience, which has value and meaning, and I’d like to pick up where I left off.”
 * The third moment comes when a player attains a level of mastery and offers advice to a novice: “Want me to show you how?” A corollary to this moment occurs in the community of practice that arises around games, when one player asks another, “How did you do that? Will you teach me?”

Games are already widely used by teachers, parents, schools and other institutions with an interest in learning. They function as doorways into content areas, introductions into specific skill sets and/or nodes in larger knowledge networks. In fact, games and learning have enjoyed an association that predates digital technology by thousands of years. That’s why when we discuss the properties of games, we mean to refer to games of **all types**: board games, physical games, puzzle games, online games, console games, mobile games, etc.  Prezi: Playing to Learn? **The Institute of Play** **The Stock Market Game** **Interact Simulations** **Simulation Training Experiences** __ipads/apps Smackdown: __
 * Children love to learn, but at some point they lose that and become adults that don't like formal learning. Let's explore why "play" has gotten such a bad rap and figure out how to get it back in education.**