Educational Gaming part 3 was the last session on using gaming as an educational tool, highlights that we need to step out of our comfort zone of teaching and try to integrate gaming into lessons for engaged learning. Students from the 21st century, also known as digital natives might not very receptive towards the traditional teaching method. Therefore it is up to the teachers to wake up and embrace this reality!
From the past 3 weeks of the educational gaming session, the games played in the MxL was of course based on one of the Gee's 36 learning principles on gaming. This man was trying to convey the message that teachers need to use the strategies in the elements of gaming, modify and integrate it into lessons. Why do students love gaming yet hate studying? If a teacher is able to identify the motivation force or strategy that captures the student's interest in gaming and use it to integrate into lessons, I think learning will be fun and engaging with less barriers.
However, I personally feel that it is not that hard to identify the key elements that attract students to play games according to Gee's principles, but it is difficcult to integrate gaming into lessons because based on our educational system, the environment still does not provide sufficient flexibility and resources.
Based on today's lesson, educational gaming benefits students in terms of 3 main areas such as cognitively, affectively and in pscyhomotor. The last gaming station visited was www.mcvideogame.com where I feel that it enhances our cognitive skills because as we played, we strategize and multi-task and use the limited resources provided to make the best out of the situation. As explained by Prof, when we play games, we tend to pick up skills that we do not even notice, so gaming benefits students subconciously. From this, I remembered a module that I took in NUS, Consumer Behaviour which focuses on the psyhcological core of the human mind. One of the topic was about we as humans are able to perceive information better at subconcious level, which explains why we tend to 'like' certain products over the same product line. Now it comes clear to me why the selection of content of the games played is important because if students are exposed to violent games too much, they might subconciuosly pick up negative elements, which explains why they behave in a certain manner. Since subconcious plays such a vital role in learning and predicting our choices, maybe somehow teachers can manipulate this strategy in teaching.
After the 3 sessions of educational gaming, I came to realize that gaming has a lot more benefits than I can imagine. Other than adding excitement to lessons, it promotes collaboration and enhances the problem-solving skills of students. Students can learn faster and better when playing Role-playing games because they are able to put themselves into the character's shoes and so the teacher can cultivate positive values among students. Some students might have a challenge managing their time if they somehow become addicted to gaming and here parents need to come in to monitor their kids.
After the 3 sessions of educational gaming, I came to realize that gaming has a lot more benefits than I can imagine. Other than adding excitement to lessons, it promotes collaboration and enhances the problem-solving skills of students. Students can learn faster and better when playing Role-playing games because they are able to put themselves into the character's shoes and so the teacher can cultivate positive values among students. Some students might have a challenge managing their time if they somehow become addicted to gaming and here parents need to come in to monitor their kids.
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