On-line Games

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Permalink Reply by Marie G. on June 24, 2009 at 2:59pm

That would be an interesting study! My experience in the classroom is that students don't automatically transfer skills without explicit direction to use those skills and an explanation on how they apply in the new context, in the case that you mention, standardized tests.

Your mention of "on-line games"is rather broad. I'm guessing that each game or type of game would contribute to a different knowledge base and strategy set.

How would the learning be assessed?
This question seems redundant. If you are talking about how students use their game skills and apply them to standardized tests, then they are already being assessed with the standardized test...

If you were to do action research on this topic you would want to brainstorm with your kids the games they play and the knowledge and strategies they learn from them. You would need to take a look at the games to and see for yourself because, they do not have reflective thinking skills necessary to determine all the skills needed to play the game. Then show the kids how to use the same skills on the standardized test. Document their improvements and benchmark your class against another class to see if they showed significant improvement over the control class.

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Permalink Reply by Ian Grove-Stephensen on June 24, 2009 at 8:55pm

Isn't this putting the cart before the horse?

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Permalink Reply by Or-Tal Kiriati on June 25, 2009 at 2:35am

Hi Judy,
I am sure students can transfer and get a lot of strategies and knowledge through online games. In fact, I just recently wrote this blog post titled "Games are the New School" . And opened a discussion about it her on classroom20 at http://www.classroom20.com/forum/topics/games-are-the-new-school.

But your question about standardized tests and assessments brings about the most difficult question which the education systems world wide are facing. Most agree that there should be new assessment methods adopted to the new learning techniques. Regular standardized tests are a real problem.

I invite you to read more on my blog post and the discussion on classroom. I'd welcome your feedback.

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Permalink Reply by Emily Shine on November 6, 2019 at 10:05am

As some previous commenters pointed out, it would depend on the type of online game. The "skills" and "knowledge" gained from playing, for example, an online "playhouse" or "dress up" game probably doesn't correlate with standardized test scores. But playing a word game or solving a puzzle online is a completely different ballgame. Even for more difficult word games, such as crossword puzzles, kids can reference an online crossword helper that can provide lessons in resourcefulness, how to use the process of elimination and critical thinking while also exercising underutilized parts of the brain.

It'd definitely be interesting to investigate whether a relationship exists between solving daily or weekly crossword puzzles and changes in standardized test scores. You could have student participants take standardized tests before and after the study. One experimental group could be tasked with solving daily crosswords and one could be tasked with doing so weekly. The control group, of course, would be those who didn't engage in solving crosswords of any kind.

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