Games and the Business of Teaching

From: Helen Collins
Subject: play in the adult classroom
Date: Tuesday, December 16, 1997 1:34PM

Hi Major FUN and thank you for this site.

I teach management, human resource management and business
communication to adults at 1st and 2nd year college level.   I teach
in a Polytechnic mainly to mature students -- the average age of my
students this semester was 36 -- and many of them have had little
formal secondary education.

I have found that I need to spend much time helping the students to
learn how to learn -- many of them having been let down by the
traditional school system they 'endured' during their compulsory
years of schooling.  They often have little confidence in their
ability.

Many seem to learn better using tactile and kinesthetic methods and I
am finding that 'games' and 'play' in the classroom tend to help with
the following:

Students find themselves interacting with the lesson content without
realising it -- less threatening than tradition methods

Students are interacting with each other - thereby processing the
material in a variety of ways and seeing more than just two
perspectives - mine and theirs.

Non-competitive games are best unless students are working in groups
 - intra-group competition lessens and a little inter-group
competition adds 'drive'.  In the groups, individual strengths are
used and individual weaknesses supported.  It is a safe place to 'not
know' and learning happens vicariously.

We tend to make lots of noise - including enough laughter to attract
the 'fun police' from time to time - as if having fun was not
conducive to effective leanring.

I'm not sure, but I believe recall is enhanced, because game memories
provide 'hooks' for information.

Sometimes I feel a little like a pioneer, and sometimes my colleagues
look sideways at me - and often new students move into 'culture
shock' for a time when they come into my classrooms.  However, I am
convinced this approach (alongside more tradtional talk & chalk
stuff) is helping getting some students through these university
level courses with less stress and better results than they would
otherwise.

I came across your site while looking for material / ideas / help in
my work.

I realise that answering this would take time, but I'm figuring that
if you didn't want strange people from far away writing to you, you
wouldn't have provided the channel!

 I would very much appreciate it if you could give me any suggestions
about appropriate games for my students, appropriate sites to visit
on the Internet (I am very much a beginner on the Net), or any other
stuff you feel like sharing.

Many thanks,

Helen Collins, Wanganui, New Zealand

---
 

Glad to meet you, Helen.

Try using Infoseek or Yahoo or whatever search service you can find. Then search for Business Simulation Games, for example. One site I found http://www.insead.fr/Encyclopedia/Education/Advances/games.html (just copy and paste that into your browser) - seemed to offer a fairly wide doorway into this whole category of educational games that are most often instructive, and generally fun.

Another suggestion: engage your students in designing games, in small teams, using the whole class as a test group. I'd start with creating variations or combinations of games they already know -- whatever games work (play) well for the class so far: board games, card games, computer games, people games (New Games). This engages their critical and their play faculties, and begins to develop sensitivity to the effect of rules on social and individual behavior.

Yours in play and learning,

Major Fun
 
---

From Helen Collins

My latest purchase is two pairs of slippers for wearing in the classroom during the winter months.  (You may remember my business/management students have an average age of 35) One pair is in the form of fat, fluffy pink pigs and the other pair is made like lion heads-with mouths that open and shut when I wriggle my toes.

Also - spot test made up by students.

 **  Class into two teams
 **  Have 30 minutes, open book, for each team to design 10 quiz questions
with one or two word answers on revision topic
 **  Tutor as quizmaster (I reserve the right to be non-PC)
 **  Each team asks a question of the other team in turn
 **  Answering team (books closed) may confer
 **  Answer given
 **  Questionning team decides whether to accept answer or give a clue
 **  Much cheering when answered correctly

Rules are agreed upon first - eg.  Questions can be challenged because they don't have one or two word answers or because they are silly, or for any other reason students manage to come up with.
Gets very noisy sometimes - outcome is:
 

• Students interact with material in supportive atmosphere while desiging questions
• Students interact with material while designing answers
• Students interact with material while asking and conferring on answers
• Student interact with material while deciding on acceptance of answers and challenges
• Students interact with material while deciding on a clue which will give the least info away
• Students interact with material while deducing answer from clues
• Everyone wins

"Prize" is usually a bag of individually wrapped penny lollipops - the "winning team" ie the team with most answers for least clues - gets to have first pick of their favourite colours.

Seldom seen middle aged men and women study so intensively, so supportively and laugh so much at the same time.

Cheers,   Helen
 

PS  Sometimes use noise makers (horns, buzzers etc) for turn taking
 

(at Wanganui Regional Community Polytechnic - New Zealand