8-1 Measuring success

Games and grading

The way we assess defines the way we teach. Teaching and learning are often seen as preparation for exams. Using standardized, text- and exercise-oriented assessment tools, influences the presentation and choice of learning material for teachers in their classrooms.

Therefore, interactive learning that is skill based and rather free-form (like learning in games) compared to worksheets and text books does not fit well into traditional test based assessment methods. The learning from games is not easily translated to a questionnaire or a multiple choice test. This does not mean that there might be better results in the tests after your students learned with a game, but the focus of learning is different. It is about choices, it is context-dependent and it is not standardized. It focuses on the learning of skills and understanding systems instead of facts and abstract information.

So at the moment, especially if you are new to teaching with games, it does not make a lot of sense for you to use tests to assess the learning in games. We rather recommend you create exercises and (creative) tasks around the game in your project and make use of these to evaluate the outcome of your project.

Assessment & evaluation of skills

It is difficult to assess skills with regular assessment methods. The regular testing methods like tests check on knowledge you acquired and it is not easy to check skills with a text based format. Additionally, the skills learned in a game, especially the more abstract ones like e.g. communication or organizational skills cannot be displayed in a traditional testing format. The skills you acquire in games can be tested with other games or in real-life situations, but they do not translate to the traditional testing methods in schools and institutions. You can instead evaluate the development of your students by checking on the gameplay and how it evolved and by letting them create material around the game that exemplifies their learning in the game. We recommend seeing the bigger picture instead and follow the students closely in their development when they play the game and after the project to find out how their skill set and their understanding developed. Using a game and a project several times with different groups and maybe also by other teachers in other classes will help you evaluate the real value of the project also when it comes to skill acquisition. Using digital media and even drastically changing the way you teach by implementing (digital) game based learning in your teaching will also raise the level of digital and media literacy for your students.

So, in general, teaching should always aim at contextualizing knowledge and this seems especially relevant for basic skills teaching. Instead of abstraction and decontextualization, knowledge and even challenging content and skills can be learnt thoroughly and high levels of expertise can be reached by practically every learner, if knowledge serves some meaningful purpose for the learner. This denies rote memorization of facts, standardized testing and a formula or a curriculum standard of what is to be expected of every single student to signify they have achieved what is necessary to pass the course.

Instead, assessment and therefore teaching and learning need to change dramatically. Assessment is a particularly important and central part of that change. According to Dan Schwartz, a learning scientist Gee quotes, “looking at the choices people make in a course of actions devoted to solving problems in a certain area is a much better assessment both of what they know and of how well prepared they are for future learning in the same area He suggests we should teach and assess choices, not knowledge, as content.”

Choice based assessment is a very interesting topic in education but goes beyond our scope here. Still, it will be necessary to change assessment profoundly, if we want to be able to fully integrate the potential of (informal) learning in participatory culture and affinity spaces into formal education.

8-2 Every game is created by its players

The different journeys through games

We mentioned before that you can play many games in a completely different way. The more openness a game presents, the more diverse the play styles. It is something to be aware of when working with games like these. If you aim at a specific learning goal in the game, players need guidance to get there and solve the tasks efficiently. Still, the freedom games offer is not only a challenge. Games offer the opportunity to use them as tools for creativity, theory crafting and finding the loopholes in the system. They are used to play them the way your personal preferences guide you. You can create in and around games, use them for socialising and competing, use them in a way to experiment with identities or to shape and express your own identity. This freedom can bear a lot of potential for deep learning. But sometimes players just fool around and are not keen on reaching a specifically strong result, they are just gaming the system, making fun of each other or trying to find ways to break the game system.

Games are perfect places for informal learning, though they are also used just for ‘fun’. Learning is sometimes happening accidentally, or it is not happening at all. To make sure the right learning opportunity is available to everybody you need to guide your students there and maybe even contextualize and explain the situation at hand. Another way can be to embrace this openness and find ways to include all of your students by additionally offering other tasks to them, different challenges, different ways of using or playing a game and also tasks beyond the game, creating something, writing texts, making a video, etc.

Your students as prosumers

Games culture supports such an approach, like the one mentioned in the chapter before, to be creative with games and to make the production of texts, etc. an integral part of your project. Gamers are pro-sumers, that means in gaming culture you are not only consuming digital media products from your favourite pop culture, it is also quite normal to also become an active producer in this culture. Gamers create texts, videos, guides, let’s plays, live streams, fan art and fiction, mods, artwork for games, levels, etc. It is just what they do and for many it is the reason why they identify with a game and its culture so much and show engagement way beyond the consumer culture that we know and live in.

There is academic literature to describe this culture that is not only restricted to games, but is especially strong there. We will describe this attitude in more detail in the Research and Discussion Track in our guidebook (p. 91). When we are talking about the reasons why gamers behave like this, we are looking at affinity spaces and participatory culture and are referring especially to the works of Henry Jenkins and again James Paul Gee.

Participatory culture is the culture of prosumers. The digital tools and media platforms nowadays make it easy for the participants of such a digital culture to not only be consumers, but to actively take part in the discourse around a game and become a producer themselves. You can see that with the sheer number of YouTube channels and Twitch streamers. If you are interested in finding out more specifically about your students, we suggest a quick and informal survey with your students to see who of them has an active YouTube or Twitch channel. You might be surprised how many there are in your group of learners, especially if they are young and grew up in the digital age.

Affinity spaces are (digital) spaces around a cultural product, in our case games. Communities are built around games and the fact that you play and enjoy the game makes you eligible to enter this relatively open-ended group of people. They are mostly hobbyists, but there are some professionals in the mix, too, and in general there are different statuses and merits that you can earn through mastery, other expertise or simply by following this culture for long. Everyone can be a teacher there while at the same time always also potentially being a learner. You can easily use that in your game based learning project simply by asking your students what they play, for how long, what they have contributed to this culture and what they think they can contribute to your project.

8-3 Fundamental changes

Teaching in and about games

We have come a long way. The potential of games for learning and teaching is enormous, but at the same time, especially with the current situation in many educational institutions that the development of a digital infrastructure for the institution is far from complete, this potential is hard to access. Many teachers also did not get the education necessary to work proficiently in a digital teaching environment, yet. Game based learning as a subject (in teacher education) does not really exist yet either. There are schools in some areas of the world that have embraced the potential of games culture and games for teaching, but they are still few and their work is out of reach for many because of the circumstances at hand.

You can still start with game based learning using what you have at hand and experience the potential learning through play and in games. The current situation can make first steps into this world possible and the formation of a group of teachers acquiring the expertise and supporting the digital development of their institution can be a strong motor there, especially if this group can demonstrate the potential of game based learning while at the same time developing the expertise to be able to discuss gaming with the students and all the stakeholders around and in the institution.

Besides that, be aware that games are around and relevant for most of your students anyway. They will learn through the games (sometimes accidentally and unintended) and by using the digital tools, the hardware and the software, become digitally literate to a certain amount (that differs a lot from person to person).

This learning can and should be more guided. It should also be reflected with the students (in education). The games industry and games culture have great potential and they drive a lot of positive developments, but they are far from being just great places. A lot of controversial topics and behaviour can be found both in the industry and the culture and the users should be aware of it and act maturely in this context after having acquired the knowledge about it and being able to reflect on it in a guided context (e.g. you discussing relevant topics in gaming with your students).

The changing role of the teacher

Working with games in education changes the role of the teacher. When working with the game, a traditional teaching setup will be the exception not the norm. There might be times when you still give a presentation and talk about knowledge or strategies. But the discussion format will probably be a standard for the phases in between gameplay. You will collect and reflect knowledge from the game together. But when playing, the teacher is only a guide in and around the game. He/she gives advice, monitors the gameplay, maybe also plays, is a consultant for ideas and strategies and helps students get along on their personal adventure in the game. The teacher is more of a mentor and facilitator in this context and he or she is the one to give the play sessions and the project the right shape to include it in the lessons and connect it to the curriculum.

Another aspect of game based learning is becoming an expert for the world of gaming and being able to discuss topics, show problematic development and connect what happens in gaming to the world around it. The potential of games as tools for learning is enormous, but the dangers in this culture and industry are also something to be aware of and to develop an attitude for with your students.

Let’s Play

In this part, the partners of the project will answer to question like:

How did you measure success/learning in the context of the project?
Did you connect the project to some kind of assessment?
Did you identify learning progress through the project? How did the students demonstrate the new knowledge?

KTANE

The teachers provided the feedback from the implementation. They said that the learners were motivated to use the game and they were happier than they were during the “normal teaching”. According to the teachers, the learning goals that were set in the beginning of the implementation were achieved.

Only with discussions made between the teachers and the learners.

Yes, as the teachers said, learners were more motivated during the class and they had progressed in communicating with others in English.

Co-creation of an escape room

The teachers provided the feedback from the implementation. They said that there was a positive alteration in learners’ motivation in STEAM. According to the teachers, the learning goals that were set in the beginning of the implementation were achieved as the learners were deeply involved in the learning prosses in order to create their own riddles for the escape room.

ACT ESOL

We surveyed learners and interviewed in-depth a student participant and her tutor. We were interested in their experience of the play rather than measuring any long term gains. However, one of the reflective comments was that this type of play helped students remember things.

Due to Covid effects we were not able to identify longer-term progress.

Lateral Thinking

Our evaluative process involved students writing about their experiences of the game and answering certain questions about whether they enjoyed the game and why or why not?

Due to Covid effects we were not able to identify longer-term progress.

Achievement - Exercises following the topic

1 Describe how you are going to evaluate the learning from your game based learning project.

2 Discuss with your colleagues what the different ways to evaluate and assess could be for your project and list the ideas here.

3 Did you identify topics from games culture or the games industry you would like to bring up with your students? List some of the topics here.