How Games Help Us Learn | Game-Based Learning

Games can help us learn. But how? And when are they most effective?

00:00 Introduction
00:27 Three Ways That Games Can Motivate
03:48 Four Ways to Teach Concepts and Skills
09:22 What's the Difference Between Gamification and Game-based Learning?
10:10 The Idea Behind Preparation for Future Learning
14:17 The Key Principle to Making Games Effective for Learning

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Game examples used in the video:

Kahoot, Math Jumps, Wuzzit Trouble, Mario, Airplane Spotter cards, Coding Pirates (海霸), Dragonbox Numbers, Space Invaders, Stats Invaders, Call of Duty, and Civilization.

What about games that don't help you learn?    • The best brain training app is NOT th...  

References:

Tobias, S., Fletcher, J. D., & Wind, A. P. (2014). Game-based learning. Handbook of research on educational communications and technology, 485-503.
(currently at http://acikders.atauni.edu.tr/pluginf...) [General background on the idea.]

Arena, D. A., & Schwartz, D. L. (2014). Experience and explanation: Using videogames to prepare students for formal instruction in statistics. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 23(4), 538-548. (currently at https://aaalab.stanford.edu/assets/pa...) [This is the one on Stats Invaders.]

Arena, D. A. (2012). Commercial video games as preparation for future learning. Stanford University. (currently at https://www.academia.edu/download/425...) [This is the disseration I mentioned using Call of Duty and Civilization.]

Arena, D. (2015). Video games as tillers of soil. Theory Into Practice, 54(2), 94-100. (https://sci-hub.st/https://www.tandfo...) [On the preparation for future learning idea]

Jimenez, O., Arena, D., & Acholonu, U. (2011, June). Tug-of-War: A card game for pulling students to fractions fluency. In Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Games+ Learning+ Society Conference (pp. 119-127). (currently available at https://www.academia.edu/download/697...) [Note how, in this project, when they tested their initial design, students’ game experiences weren’t translating to out-of-game contexts.]

Long, Y., & Aleven, V. (2014, June). Gamification of joint student/system control over problem selection in a linear equation tutor. In International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems (pp. 378-387). Springer, Cham (pdf currently https://www.researchgate.net/profile/...) [An example of where Dragonbox wasn’t effective.]

On how to use Dragonbox effectively in the classroom, check out: https://tapintoteenminds.com/how-to-e.... Note how much time he spends drawing connections between the game and the target skill.