I suffered. I suffered and was bored for most of my school years. My torture was called lecture and my jail was my desk. However, I managed to get my baccalaureate and to go to College without any scratch, but without any spark either. When I became a teacher, I promised myself to be a different teacher. Despite my good intentions, it took me years before I really start flipping my classroom.
To play or not to play, this is not a question. Children, teenagers, adults and seniors, we should all keep playing because, as it is said inthis article:
“Play, nonetheless, is a serious business, at least for the teachers, because it gives children vital skills in how to learn.”
If you agree that learning how to learn is fundamental, then you also agree that playing is fundamental.
Our school systems are divided on very old and formal acadamic subjects and based on busy timetables and homeworks, not to mention extra-curriculum activities and tutoring. Parents and very often teachers are placing student’s results in standardized tests as an evidence of success. In “Taking play seriously”, Robin Marantz Henigfeb says that it has become ” playtime versus résumé building.” There is therefore a lot of pressure to listen in class, take notes and perform during tests, even thought these tests won’t develop your critical thinking, creativity, collaborative skills and many other essential skills for our students’ future. Even in my school, the IB Diploma results are always displayed and publicized as a guarantee of quality.
However, one country is not following the herd. Finland is always seenas the strangest educational lab of the planet where students seem happy and successful. In the following video, Michael Moore interviews some educators and what comes back regularly is that Finland doesn’t care about standardized tests at all because their main priority is the happiness of their students. Play is central, homeworks inexistant or consist in watching vodcasts and listening podcasts… a sort of happy flipped classroom!
When I was a Middle School teacher, I always had students play games in class or online as a home learning. The power of playing is underestimated by some teachers, whereas it is immense and even in Upper School. Some teachers thought that I was just entertaining my students and still believe that learning at the Upper School is a serious matter and, as so, should be content and exam-driven. I wish they could see the benefits of some game-based projects.
In January 2017, I went to Bett in London and I spent some time in both Minecraft Edu and Lego Education zones. First of all, I had a lot of fun, but I also learned a lot. It reinforced my belief that some elements of game design should be integrated more often into the curriculum.
In many schools, Minecraft is now widely used like shown in this example from Suzy Ramsden,, a grade 1 teacher who has done a fabulous Minecraft project with her class. If you want to get some inspiration and see an incredible example of how games can enhance learning, I suggest that you click immediately on this link! To quote Suzy:
“Rather than planning a project to reach that transformation stage in my students learning, what happened was something much more powerful. The students themselves were transforming or redefining their own learning. So although it was a guided inquiry into using Minecraft as a collaborative tool, with detailed steps and skill building, before too long the students were beginning to take the project way beyond my original task.”
In this Edutopia article, Vicki Davis explains how gamification can be done with older students.
Both Vicki and Suzy do what Judy Willis MD suggests in her article, she sets a serie of progressive and achievable challenges to every student in order to recognize the progress made. And do you know what the good thing is about that? It is contagious as more and more teachers have decided to move to the next level!
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