Establishing a Game-Design Friendly Classroom
When most kids play games, it's often chaotic. Fizzy, luridly colored drinks, sticky gooey crumbly snacks, blaring music, blathering televisions, the board on the floor, bits splayed merrily, game often neglected and left on the floor for dogs, cats, and dads with laundry baskets stepping on it. NOOOOOOOOOOO!
Having a game design-friendly classroom requires some work on the part of the teacher to establish norms. Namely, eliminate the above. I present a short PowerPoint (I'm the PowerPoint queen, it seems) on behavioral expectations for when we play games. We have 45 minute classes and to get games set up, played, and put away in that time means that kids need to be focused!
Here's what I do.
1. I give the "Creating a Game Design-Friendly Classroom". We talk about it.
2. I put the kids in gaming groups. They "practice" playing a game by playing a game. I pick short, easy to learn, easy to play games.
I give gentle reminders about the guidelines as they play. You could also select key rules or slides and place them on the tables (laminated or in plastic sleeves). Sometimes I give them a grade for this (seriously, it's the easiest A if they play by the rules), sometimes I don't. To do so, put a list of students on a clipboard and put a tally by students' names every time they break a rule. I'm not a monster--I'll give a reminder before I take a point off--but I definitely take points off if I find board game pieces left behind on the floor or table after we're done. Many game companies will send replacement pieces for free, others charge a small amount, but I have had less than 10 significant incidents with my games over the last few years because I have taught the kids to respect my games. (And they are my games, all of them, so I get quite annoyed if they don't treat them gently.
I forgot to add to this PPT: "Never put game board boxes on the floor." One step and smuuuuusssssshed corners. Yuck.
3. Often, the next day, we "practice" again. We play games, dig? Later on, I'll have them complete game evaluations or provide other kinds of post-gaming feedback, but for practice, I just want to keep it quiet and mellow, as best as you can with middle school gifted kids.
4. You could also play some quiet music, classical or otherwise, and tell them that you need to be able to hear the music as they play. That helps give them an auditory benchmark to work with as they play.
Having a game design-friendly classroom requires some work on the part of the teacher to establish norms. Namely, eliminate the above. I present a short PowerPoint (I'm the PowerPoint queen, it seems) on behavioral expectations for when we play games. We have 45 minute classes and to get games set up, played, and put away in that time means that kids need to be focused!
Here's what I do.
1. I give the "Creating a Game Design-Friendly Classroom". We talk about it.
2. I put the kids in gaming groups. They "practice" playing a game by playing a game. I pick short, easy to learn, easy to play games.
I give gentle reminders about the guidelines as they play. You could also select key rules or slides and place them on the tables (laminated or in plastic sleeves). Sometimes I give them a grade for this (seriously, it's the easiest A if they play by the rules), sometimes I don't. To do so, put a list of students on a clipboard and put a tally by students' names every time they break a rule. I'm not a monster--I'll give a reminder before I take a point off--but I definitely take points off if I find board game pieces left behind on the floor or table after we're done. Many game companies will send replacement pieces for free, others charge a small amount, but I have had less than 10 significant incidents with my games over the last few years because I have taught the kids to respect my games. (And they are my games, all of them, so I get quite annoyed if they don't treat them gently.
I forgot to add to this PPT: "Never put game board boxes on the floor." One step and smuuuuusssssshed corners. Yuck.
3. Often, the next day, we "practice" again. We play games, dig? Later on, I'll have them complete game evaluations or provide other kinds of post-gaming feedback, but for practice, I just want to keep it quiet and mellow, as best as you can with middle school gifted kids.
4. You could also play some quiet music, classical or otherwise, and tell them that you need to be able to hear the music as they play. That helps give them an auditory benchmark to work with as they play.
Here's a barebones version of my guidelines for students: