Games and Learning

A new white paper aimed at parents and teachers says that digital games can help encourage students and improve education in the classroom and at home.

The paper is a product of a partnership between co.lab, an education technology accelerator, and BrightBytes Labs, a research wing of a firm that provides technical support for schools, and stresses the increasing proof that students can clearly benefit from digital games.

“Well-designed educational games can offer incredible possibilities for teaching and learning. In particular, they can engage students in ways that remove age- and grade-level restrictions on when students can learn,” the authors write, seeking to combat the nagging concerns of teachers and parents that games are a distraction.

The paper builds on recent academic studies of games and seeks to introduce a less scholarly-focused audience to what is known about games and learning.

But one of the authors, BrightBytes’ Kristen Swanson, cautioned that there needs to be a focus on games that are actually built to transmit information and learning.

“Educational transfer, when achieved, ensures that students can use what they’ve learned in many different contexts. Practically speaking, games that support educational transfer prepare students for real life,” she wrote recently.

But beyond making the case that well-designed games can help kids learn, the authors go on to advocate schools and teachers adopt a more aggressive approach to partnering with technology startups to create more communication about what works in the classroom and what teachers need.

“Startups can also offer the type of problem-solving innovation that can help school leaders and teachers address students’ learning needs,” they write. “These innovations can range from finding ways to address math achievement gaps to removing time-consuming paperwork tasks from teachers’ list of to-dos, so that teachers can focus their efforts on targeted teaching and lesson planning.”