Classroom Metrics - Real World Case Study for Games in Schools - Extra Credits

We believe games can be a great teaching tool, but we need data to study that assumption in an actual classroom setting. The team at Filament Games partnered with a Sun Prairie School District teacher named Mary Headington to analyze exactly that.
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[@JackgarPrime]

I hope more schools around the country take a look at all this information. The use of games as a tool in the hands of a skilled educator seems to people like us who watch this series as a no-brainer, but there are still many, many people in the system who don't see or don't really understand this value. While I don't think games would ever or should ever replace a traditional education, the right software can help teachers get their lessons across that much more effectively. And if it helps encourage students to learn on their own, as well, then even better.

[@andy4an]

i've already worked with learning software, and found that while it didn't do a whole lot by itself, it generated amazing reports about each student that allowed extremely targeted tutoring sessions. The results were good, and as the data comes in, more and more schools will switch until even the most anti-game administrators will have to admit that it is too powerful a tool to throw away

[@wu1ming9shi]

Exactly games alone should never replace traditional learning (unless the teacher is bad at teaching...), they should be trated as a tool like a crayon is useable to get the subject across, so should games be used as a tool to understand the subject.

[@andy4an]

well, i don't 100% agree with "should NEVER replace". for a small subset of students, they will learn better certain subjects while being self taught. for instance, "saxon math" is an amazing tool for people to teach themselves math. I can imagine a video game that has a similar power that could really click with some students. the key is not to find the one way to teach everyone, but to figure out how to teach everyone. one of the things that excites me about video games is that it could allow a small numbers of teachers to have lessons for kids in many different styles.

[@andy4an]

***** schools aren't trying to get rid of teachers. they are laying off teachers that they can't afford. the way you said it makes it sound like the schools are doing because they want to. Adding computer assist could allow a single teacher to handle more kids, and could be more effective dollar for dollar. Having personally experienced the benefit of teacher/program combo, I am excited about future mass implementation, especially in struggling areas that need this tool.

[@Overhazard]

I'd say it depends on the school district's priorities and progressiveness with technology. My school district is run by an insular group of old white men, cut off from the rest of the world. Any implementation of technology they've done has been amazingly clumsy (and only happened long after I graduated, so I never saw it myself), like giving every student an iPad and not really doing much else beyond that. The result was that the district wasted tons of money buying them and half the iPads were either returned broken beyond repair or went missing. My district is also obsessed with standardized tests, so anything that doesn't directly improve test scores is something they're not interested in. At the time of my last two years in high school, it was also in a rush to cut everything it felt was unnecessary, such as arts programs. If game-supported education is shown to be effective, I think my district will only accept it from social pressure and not have any idea how to use it.

[@extrahistory]

What effect do games have in the classroom? Our friends at Filament Games conducted a study. Here are the results!

[@jackedmondson1373]

is your animators addicted to overwatch.

[@0NBalfa0]

+Jack Edmonson are*

[@r4masami]

Hey Dan, do you have a link to the full study/paper? I'd be interested in reading it.

[@arendhil]

I loved this video. I work with a similar company in Brazil for about 6 years. However, they were very poor on getting the info from player use of the game besides all my shouts on how great this approach could be. It's good to know that there are companies working with education through games seriously. :D I would love studies/papers/contacts to talk about it.

[@Kato756]

Hello ExtraCredits. I am a History College student from Brazil, and I would like to know if FilamentGames has any interest in translating their work to other languages, mainly because here in Brazil english is not a requirement for enrolling in college, and as I recently looked up, we don´t have that many articles or recent studies on gaming and education. The more popular thing we have is youtube channels that teach history (more on the style of GaijinGoomba/GameTheory than yours), but formal studies on that? None =/ I do try to look up for other kinds of channel, but apart from mine (who is more on the lines of Heres whats based on history on this game) and one that is a non cartoon version of ExtraH, there are few of those..... So please, any help would be apreciated!

[@olixor]

1:49 They are comfy and easy to wear!

[@somethingstrange3152]

For how much money?

[@lentlemenproductions770]

+Hugo GameWorld 393,000,000 Quadrillion Quadrillion Dollars.

[@dominicha5092]

+Evan Sulick I'll take two

[@McKon.]

Take my upvote! o wait wrong media.

[@swishfish8858]

And here I thought the first reference I saw in the comments would be to Undertale. Well done, and thank you kindly.

[@andy4an]

the games my kids played at the tutoring class I volunteered at not only directed the kids towards explanations about what they were struggling with, but also tailored the difficulty to their current level and created a report about what the kids needed teacher help with. Half the class was computer time, and half was tutor time. The stuff I tutored the kids was highly informed by how they did on the games portion of the hour. really neat stuff.

[@oversimulated9097]

Love the idea that exploration, direct advisement, and archival access based learning is being looked at in all of this. The less we shove kids into a corner with how they approach learning, the more they'll remain interested. That 4% bonus to scores when games are used in tandem with curriculum is a fantastic finding.

[@Drocksas]

I'm actually reading a book on teaching, and the very first chapter focuses on how a teacher is someone who is supposed to cause the student to learn, rather than simply giving the student the information. It seems as though games will essentially be a really effective tool to further this core of a teacher. Really cool to see

[@PHOENIX2001]

I remember back in the day, my middle school (in the 90's) had a couple of computer games that were educational. Granted it was not part of the curriculum. But it was made for schools. The games were You Don't Know Jack and Myst. YDKJ had a version for history and social science and I think Myst was for Greek mythology.

[@VOYAGEUR-YT]

I didn't know it was that old. I'm still playing fucking Plumo on the farm and Milly's math house. Also math circus was a go to game for me lol

[@PHOENIX2001]

Yup. Even putt putt was used for school.

[@jakejutras2733]

ohhh shit! Math Circus! That just made neurons fire in my brain that have been dormant for years xD

[@MasterSeyer]

My schools did not provide any video games. My parents bought Jumpstart for me from Pre-K to 4th grade. However, in my old middle school, some kids smuggled in a game called "Pocket Tanks". So that was my learning tool on Physics lol.

[@MoonShadowWolfe]

I had Math Circus. Good ol' Math Circus ... Also a game called Cross Country Canada that was supposed to teach geography, but since we never had lessons about that enough to know what to do, we just sort of drove around until we crashed the car.

[@andyongames]

I cannot express how happy I am with the episode! There are so many challenges to making good educational games that it feels like that must be the hard part; people overlook the importance of how they're used in the classroom and working with teachers so these tools that are so hard to produce and can be so transformative are actually used effectively. It what I did my dissertation on and I'm so happy to see you all giving this issue more attention.

[@StringsNStrands]

Would it be possible to get a link to the study?

[@jordandravis]

Ditto!

[@Phiteros]

Double ditto!

[@kennyrichardson3842]

No, that's a flygon.

[@StringsNStrands]

Kenny Richardson I could be a ditto >.>

[@kennyrichardson3842]

Happily chubby flygon Nope, your eyes are apparent, and they're normal. I've played Pokemon Snap.

[@therealbahamut]

Extra Credits is probably the most positive influence I know for anyone who cares at all about video games and even many who don't. Don't ever stop, guys. This is the kind of thing the world needs right now.

[@WoyablePitt]

As a futur teacher (1 year from now) and a gamer, i'm really thrilled about games used in an educational purpose. I already heard of some teachers doing such experiments (in my field of work, I closely looked upon a history teacher that used skyrim as a modelisation of medieval urbanisation). You're giving me hope and nerve to, in a near futur, do my best to let the video games being aknowledged by my coworkers as a usefull teaching tool. Keep up the good work EC, love you

[@Atroposian]

As a teacher and long-time viewer of your channel, especially the educational games series, I can't be happier with this video and the results of this study!

[@yumri4]

This is one of many pieces to the puzzle of how to get our children to learn how to learn when young then to apply it when older At this time common core almost mandates 1 teaching style to be used and never went away from effectively tell them to learn in this one way or fail This video is a peice to use to get that part of common core out of the way to help students learn quicker and retain knowledge better

[@maniam5460]

I made a game on scratch for a presentation in my history class and although they probably did teach them a lot (13 year old, not an industry veteran so the games implemented would be infinitely better) it definitely got a lot of people really interested to learn about it and pay more attention to our teacher.

[@AkhierDragonheart]

Learning has always been a partnership. Originally we had a more direct apprenticeship model for learning job skills and such. At some point we suddenly needed a mass of people with a few basic skills (stuff like working on a factory line) and so to bootstrap that we started teaching everyone the basics in a group environment. This also worked. Now though we offloaded too much into that group environment going as far as having even higher learning at college devolved into what is almost just a continuation of grade school. Sadly the current situation is reverting to a place quite similar to how it used to be for a lot of things. As we automate more and more of the repetitive jobs every new thing someone ends up having to do is something that at it's base can't be repeated by rote memorization. The current schooling methods focus too much on trying to give people an education rather then getting them to take it.

[@Marconius6]

My worry here is BAD teachers who think the games will do their work for them and end up with the .1% result, worse than what they would have gotten traditionally.

[@PilkScientist]

that's what fixing the teacher review system would be for. Also, measuring the time teachers give to the game could help.

[@johncassleman4104]

+Marconius This is currently a big issue in education. It already happens, unfortunately. +Aiden Fixing the teacher review system (of which there are hundreds or thousands - states, local districts, individual schools) isn't going to erase the human tendency to work as little as possible. You're right though, improving teacher assessment would be a step in the right direction. Washington state uses TPEP and it seems like it's working (many folks I've talked to hate it though), however, principals can fudge the TPEP evals like they can fudge any evals.

[@TheDavidLiou]

If the teacher is bad then the student gonna get the .1% result nevertheless, traditionally or not.

[@thesquishedelf1301]

+Liou David THIS. THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS. +Aidan Caughie, +John Cassleman - Trying to implement a teacher evaluation system would be prohibitively difficult to do such that you don't end up with an atmosphere of narking or fudging - either there is a clear obligation to narking, stifling creativity and creating a toxic work environment, or there is a passive social obligation to fudging, such that you gain approval with individuals by not making them look bad. I don't know the answer to bad teachers, but it's not a teacher evaluation program, bringing down teaching quality as a whole or actually making it more difficult to bring down a bad teacher. I'm actually inclined to say, for once, that a laissez-faire system might be more effective.

[@johncassleman4104]

+The Squished - I disagree. Using independent assessors would be one way to circumvent the "narking v. fudging" atmosphere we are describing. Accountability must be PART of the solution. Other parts could include some blend of: improved teacher preparation programs, incentivizing teachers to physically relocate to where they are actually needed, using relevant tech in the classroom, rewarding high quality teachers, more robust teacher mentoring systems. There isn't one simple right or wrong answer for improving education.

[@channelVlogger]

I discovered you guys only yesterday, but I've rarely encountered channels as educative as yours, which is quite a feat. Keep up the great work!

[@hereforonereason5820]

i like how this show uses hard data where it can and where it can't, it's upfront about it.

[@matteblue5970]

I once had a lot of fun playing with a physics demonstration tool that I was showed in my physics class. I think I spent way more time than I meant to, it was really fun to play around with air pressure and materials and watch the effects. I think one of the most memorable educational games that I have played, though, was a bridge design simulator in middle school that I randomly found on a classroom PC. I learned more about construction and statics then than I did for the next six years, only surpassed by my learning in college engineering classes.

[@ryantheroman4331]

Please do a episode on Dreambox! (It's a app) At my elementary school it was so unpopular, that when I was in 4th grade, THERE WAS A STUDENT PROTEST on the "game" and when I wrote a essay on the matter the principle resolved that next year the fifth graders wouldn't have to do Dreambox, (I already didn't have to do Dreambox because every opinion essay I wrote was on the subject and how much I disliked it, there were others like me) because of how unpopular the "game" was amongst students 2/3 of the teachers gave way and made it so that you didn't have to do Dreambox and instead you could do something else. I guess Dreambox wasn't really teaching the students math, but rather teaching them to rebel when they see something that's not right.

[@umnikos]

I checked for dreambox on the internet. Yeah, it's bad. Very bad. Especially if everyone has to play it, no matter if they understand what the game is teaching or they don't

[@MoonShadowWolfe]

Dang, what the heck is Dreambox? What I found on Google makes it look like just a bunch of math games. What's the issue?

[@umnikos]

MoonShadowWolfe that they are TERRIBLE math games... believe me, just believe me...

[@icedragon769]

Based on a peek at their website, I'm going to guess it's a typical math memorization grind with an annoying unlikable "adventure" story that has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual tasks you're completing. How close am I?

[@umnikos]

icedragon769 nailed it

[@roguedogx]

I love hearing the phrase "someone went and took that data already" its like when you learn you don't have to work Saturday.

[@day2148]

I work for a similar company, and what you discuss on this video has pretty much become the standard for education-games (interactive educational content) -- especially if one actually wants to sell these games to schools. Pretty much all of the better companies in this industry has: 1. Extensive guides and even prebuilt lesson plans for working such games into the classroom, especially for how they fit into the federal Common Core standards (for US) 2. Metric collection that allows teachers to easily visualize where their students start, progress, and end; this information should be easily charted and graphable for ease of comprehension If this is information you guys like, you really should talk to educational content-providers more. A thing to keep in mind is that many of these companies do not actively promote their products as games, due to the stigma attached to edutainment games. That being said, there are major challenges to this industry. It's not hardware -- most school in advanced countries already meet those requirements. It's the lack of standardization, protocol, especially for communications between content provider and student information services which are causing a MAJOR hurdle in the adoptation process.

[@MininiTheSmall]

Wow, that is so amazing that a teacher would actually want to share their knowledge and not hoard little bites of information to themselves, to make themselves feel better. So Fascinating!

[@PyroMancer2k]

The findings of the study don't really surprise me. Because given the game described it doesn't sound like it was really meant to teach anything. It sounds more like it was a visual representation of how things are effected in the real world of planetary physics. But the problem is if the student hasn't already been exposed to these concepts they are not likely to get much out of playing the game. Instead they will have fun moving planets close to the sun and watching them turn into deserts or moving them far out and become iceballs and so on with the other effects. It reminds be of a game that had at the marine section of the Zoo. It was an aquarium that let you put in a bunch of different marine life and was suppose to represent an eco system as some fish at other fish so if there were too many predators all the pray fish would die and then so too would the predators and it would be an empty tank. It has no direction and was just some game so as a young child I didn't really learn anything from it other than sharks bad so don't add them and we should probably get rid of sharks. As I got older though and went back to the Zoo I had learned more and later realized that it was most likely meant as a game to teach about balancing ecosystems. But without any context for the game it was little more than a fun sandbox to mess around with for a short time. As for the game in the video, given the results from the study I have to question how good of an educational game it actually was since educational games should actually teach you something and those who played just the game didn't learn anything. However given the study I would say that it was a great interactive tool in much the same way a model of the solar system is. Sure you can spin the planets around on those model solar system, like we did back in school, but at the end of the day it doesn't really teach you much.

[@101jir]

To elaborate, look at RTW. While the weaponry and so forth is woefully unrealistic, you learn regions very fast. Few could compare to an RTWII player in being able to look at a map and say where Massalia or Pontus is (approximately), for example. HOI4 might not teach you about what did happen during WWII, but it does expose you about some of the lesser taught figures, such as Trotsky, Nimitz, and Stimson. The value in games has less to do with explicit instruction and more to do with repeated exposure. A good game needs flexible mechanics, and sometimes that flexibility works in favor of instruction, sometimes against. But the names of the elements can remain the same, and seeing them repeatedly makes them familiar.

[@NathanK97]

that's exactly what i was thinking... a sandbox game requires an instructor to give direction because it has no direction in and of itself.... they should try the study again with a game that has a clear goal and a reward metric an informational resource the students may reference at will.... so if they don't understand something they could look it up in plain text the instructor should be around to listen to the student's ideas and thoughts if that helps them but should try not to interfere much more.

[@zodayn4767]

I liked the ''in short'' transition. In short it was really short and comfortable to watch. :P

[@kirabarnes657]

Teacher: I can't just put anything in my class! I have standards, you know. Filament Games: We can make games that fit your current curriculum Teacher: oh no you're meeting all of my standards

[@loganroufs9705]

And then there the Boomer teachers, who are too bullheaded and stubborn to change.

[@MsAmiClassified]

when i was in elementary and middle school they had oregon trail in the third grade classroom. we werent required to play it, but around that time we were being taught about the oregon trail the normal way and the game ended up giving a really awesome picture of what it was like to be on it. i liked the game enough that i bought a copy and i still have it now

[@grantlauzon5237]

In an economy class my class played a game in which we were in charge of equal sized companies. We could spend money on R&D, advertising, number of products to produce and some other things that I forget. The point is that it gave me some hands on experience with supply and demand. We sold 2800 units two months ago 2900 units last month and we just doubled our spending on marketing so I bet we should produce 3200 products and hopefully we don't run out of products by the end of the month.

[@BeardedCatDad]

Was this an online game? Do you have a link to it?

[@aknauft]

"Games for education: a pedagogical force multiplier"A+

[@SonicRooncoPrime]

I wish I'd had games to encourage learning *how* to learn when I was growing up. Great work, EC and Filament Games!

[@AdeptusForge]

I've always thought that the best way to improve child grades has been to hire more teachers and lower the teacher- to-student ratio. It'd give the students more time to work with the teacher one-on-one, it'd make sure that the teacher has time to go over any questions that the students have, and it'd be much easier for a teacher to tailor their lessons to the students, since they don't have to try and accommodate for 25-40 students, each with wildly different learning styles and personalities. Games are a great way of expressing things to a class easier, but lowering the amount of students each teacher has to deal with at any one time is an easier, albeit more expensive way to do it.

[@timeforsuchaword]

Hiring more teachers is a great way to improve a particular school, but in the larger scheme of things you're going to run into problems finding enough good teachers. It's hard and often stressful work with relatively low pay, which understandably drives many people toward other career paths. Many schools are already struggling to fill teaching positions, let alone able to create new ones. I think it's going to take some significant national reform to the education system to make teaching more attractive before decreasing class sizes can work as a widespread solution. If we do get there someday then games can still be a valuable addition to the smaller classes. We can have our teachers and play our games too :D

[@ThePondus430]

I think a big problem with this is having a good teacher. And I don't mean a teacher that isn't mean, rather a teacher that can asses all students individually, interest all of them in the subject he/she is teaching and (I'm pretty much repeating myself here) be able to make the learning fun for the best, as well as the worst. And it's super hard finding teachers like that. We don't even have enough teachers like that now. They exist, but still. So yeah. In fact, I think that one teacher like this would be enough. OK, you can do it with not "perfect" teachers, but that's how you improve learning. oh yeah, and the teacher has to want to do it. enough talking =D

[@Tigersight0]

Adding in games that can give the teachers accurate metrics on their student needs should sort of lower the student-teacher ratio. Of course, it doesn't actually, it's more like a work around to get the same end result. Basically: If the teacher knows exactly what each student is struggling with and needs help to understand better, it should take less time to work with each student personally, allowing the teacher to give that valuable personal instruction time to more students within the same amount of time. So, you get the same effect as lower the student-teacher ratio, without the extra teachers. Of course, getting more (good) teachers would always be a good thing, and much more effective at giving that personal instruction time to the students than games could, but it should at least be a start.

[@ThePondus430]

+tkrowgamer sure. the point was not to list all the things a teacher needs but rather to say that getting more teachers is not a working solution. but yeah deer lay eggs. like ducks. except their eggs are big, red with black spots and change hue depending on the weather =D

[@Syogren]

Yes but see, hiring teachers costs money, so nobody actually wants to do it. :')

[@thesphnx6836]

Games are so beneficial to learning. Every february I'd go to the book fair with my mom and she'd buy me one book and one edition of "Reader Rabbit's Toddler" with the content I'd learn that school year, I was addicted to the games that thought spelling and learned much faster than my peers since I had a "head start"

[@SirVG]

Last time I was this early, our learning game was Oregon Trail on the Apple II.

[@Ark7760]

My geometry teacher in high school did something similar to this, but instead of a game, she would tell us the section, have us get out our textbooks, and try and figure it out ourselves, and then a while later she would explain it after we were all curious, which everyone enjoyed and we rarely ever had to study because we had already memorized it from figuring it out on our own.

[@darelh1348]

I'm a 17 year old aspiring to become a research psychologist in the future, and an area I'm interested in is how psychology can inform education. I'm also an avid gamer, who wants to see games used for good. So this video was perfect for me, I'm going to look into the Filament company more! Perhaps in the future I'll be able to contribute research looking at how video games can be involved in education.

[@renj123]

I'm INCREDIBLY stoked about the idea of using games in the classroom. I've used a couple of sorta board game type games which I invented myself to teach social studies, or to teach my class regarding the mechanics which revolves around voting and collective decision-making. So yes, you're preaching to the choir already when it comes to me. But here's one thing I've puzzled over for a long while. How can a game be designed to teach say, writing of an argumentative essay, or comprehension? Folks at EC, I'd totally relish an opportunity to get in touch with the folks at Filament to bounce ideas, or if anyone is interested to discuss that here on this thread, I'd be happy to oblige.

[@renj123]

Just to break down some pedagogical theory: So there are three types of things we teach in education. 1) Knowledge 2) Skills and 3) Values. You can't really teach values, so the main focus is knowledge and skills. Knowledge would relate to things such as concepts, like scientific concepts. I.e. being able to explain what something does or why. Skills would pertain to things such as maybe manipulating an equation to make Y the subject. I'd think comprehension and essay writing would be more like skills but is there something in gameplay which may be exploited to teach something like that?

[@ErokowXiyze]

I love each of your Games in the Classroom episodes! The only things you do that I enjoy more is Extra History.

[@offmetagamer5887]

I am a huge fan of your work in all of these videos and have seen all of them, a solid chunk of them more than once. With that in mind, I was with you in this video right up until the end where it started to sound a lot more like an endorsement for Filament without giving us much information about Filament except that they are pushing for games in schools. I personally would like to hear from you guys a bit more about what Filament is, what they advocate, and more importantly WHY they advocate it. I realize that some of these topics were loosely covered in this video, but a loose covering does not cut it when you are endorsing something so heavily. I look forward to the next video and hope to see some more about this subject in the future, cheers!

[@apoth90]

I think the issue is, that most students don't see the reason to learn a lot of the stuff they're supposed to learn. If you can give an emotional experience that is somehow related to the skill or knowledge that would give the kids the motivation.

[@ethansmith7263]

As a college student, I can safely say that the thing that students need to be taught more of is how to get their opinions across in a written format. Long essays 10-20 pages are what you need to know how to do for college, at least for history/geography/english courses and I know that I was never taught nearly enough about how to really write those in high school. I don't think that games can really help with that, but I'd say that another thing that they actually could help with is basic grammar rules. That may seem simple, but my experience with grammar rules started and ended somewhere around third grade and I'd bet there are many games which could help with that sort of thing.

[@101jir]

It depends. Actually, where I went I had many professors insisting on brevity, especially History and English. Yes, there are plenty of times when they want large papers as well, but they really need to be ready for both. I'd say that forums actually have more potential in that regard, but you would need to have an intellectual community. Some categories could be directed at large papers, the best of which would be featured on the front page, and others would be just community discussion (where people tend to already pressure each other to be brief, or at least not wordy). Forums helped a lot for me. We need a community like those seen on history themed games, like WT and probably RTW and HoI. Those games attract people that know stuff on these topics, and either observing the debate or participating can both be very informative.

[@Syogren]

I'm a computer science / applied mathematics double major, but I still have to take classes that make me do essays as general requirements. Going into these kinds of majors aren't going to get you out of doing essays, and in the far future you might want to do essays on things for various reasons anyway, so that makes teaching how to write an essay even more important.

[@101jir]

I should point out that, as someone that was looking into becoming a teacher myself, there is a strong movement against our existing focus on essays, it is just that so far we haven't really found many good ways around them. We have a few, but pros and cons, and sometimes the cons mean that a certain approach doesn't work for grading long-term. Might be different for colleges though. Elementary and secondary want to move away from essays, not that in practice we have been.

[@Atratzu]

I think everyone was hoping to hear "the people who played video games did the best", but it doesn't surprise me that the mix did best. A good teacher will go a long way when it comes to learning.

[@RagTagPwner]

As someone who has been using Game Development as a teaching tool for programming, this makes sense with my last 6 months of experience.

[@tymekx014]

the teacher who split the class was quite mean to the groups who only got taught or only got the game

[@starfyre59]

My science teacher uses this and it actually really helps. If you want to try this, try the gizmo website. It has tons of games that can really help.

[@frostcrackle2374]

I love the points you make in your videos, and also the symbolism you use with your images. Brilliant.

[@wolfundersurface]

That face at 2:10 I love it, thanks Scott you made my day.

[@pacha269]

i love how smart you guys are ! in this video you're clearly supporting something that would benefit you as i know james is involved a lot in this whole "game for education" thing, but you're not saying : "hey they are not doing it now and they dont really want to do it, how lame !". instead you're pushing for the right thing : actually studying the subject beforehand. And this is because you do BELIEVE it is a great idea that will benefit others (which if we want to circle back, is probably one of the reason james got involved) and studying that will just prove it. that's clearly a WIN-WIN and i wish you the best in these regards. being born in 95 i think i'm of the first generation for which it is common to have played educational games at home when i was little and i have very fond memories of them ! (READER RABBIT FTW) great video once again

[@mythirdchannel]

I especially like it when you make episodes about games in the classroom

[@crusefitzgerald]

I highly recommend watching the john hunters ted talk on "teaching with the world peace game" this teacher uses a advanced board game to teach his student many valuable skills and even teach them morals. John hunter uses this game as his primary way of teaching.

[@ethanfullmer5547]

3:30, man I played that game, in mrs headington's class, I was watch you guys at the time, and still am!

[@rykx0r]

I think it's funny that it has taken so many people so long to realize that play is a great tool for learning. I mean, aside from the obvious fun aspect, nature implements play to teach analogs to the skills needed to survive.

[@leinternethipster]

I am pursuing a degree in K-12 Music Educator, and every education episode of yours I watch is fantastic, but always leaves me with a question: Can games be implemented into a musical classroom environment? If so, how? Is it as simple as the music simulators like Rock Band? What effects would games have at introducing students to new styles of music? What would the implication of studying video game music in conjunction with older styles have in broadening student's musical tastes? And other such questions

[@mrbunnyban]

As an educator, this is pretty interesting information particularly how relevant teachers are when using games. I think in this case, clever choice of curriculum content was especially important. Not sure which other curriculum content could make use of virtual environments in the same manner.

[@droko9]

I'm glad you guys do so much research into games for classrooms, but the reason I subbed to this channel is to learn about game mechanics and stuff like that. Could you focus more on that?

[@preuenthegreat518]

I hereby call for all paradox grand strat games be mandatory in history classes. It's all I ever did in history class anyway so it would be an improvement for me no matter what.

[@shallbetterdj]

Just a fun comment. The best learning of accounting I learned was by playing Monopoly with bookkeeping spreadsheets. This allowed us as students to better asses what financial risks we could take based on the funding we received through the game. If classrooms can apply that same level of integration it does not necessarily require an entire platform to be built around it. But games with aspects that you wish to teach and be implemented into your curriculum and you can use it as teaching experience showing the students how to better their skills in the field you are teaching.

[@oh7mak]

I played education games when I was young, one game for 2nd graders before I even entered school or even knew how to read and some math games while in school. For me, the math games didnt help much because i was always good in math, but for the other students who werent, it was just a simple game to help reinforce memorization and quick thinking to beat the game and the alien boss. The educational game for 2nd graders was AMAZING i had a blast playing it and even though I couldnt read, often times not knowing wtf to do, and thinking "i wish i knew what those things meant" I slowly progressed and learned without realizing. If any of you have kids, buy them some educational games that are meant to educate and be fun. You wont regret it. The earlier you can teach them while they have fun, the better

[@Redchocobo]

Two questions: 1. How can this translate to a second language class? 2. When is the episode on Pokémon Go coming out?

[@Syogren]

I can answer 2. Even if they were working on such an episode right now, there's no way it'd be done until at LEAST a few weeks from now.

[@thearcheduck8746]

pokemon go came out 4 days ago in the UK and us.

[@thearcheduck8746]

***** oh i misread it as when did pokemon go come out.

[@Syogren]

Rip.

[@j.c.2240]

Maybe a point and click adventure game in which the students have to translate simple phrases to resolve a conflict? Or any dialogue focused gameplay, really

[@AlriikRidesAgain]

Guys, the Description got messed up, under the break is the Description for the Revolution episode.

[@DuranmanX]

It's a good thing teachers matter in adding games the classroom, otherwise the Unions would go on strike at their implementation

[@andy4an]

my experience with teaching kids with video games affirms this. the games didn't actually help that much, but the reports that the games generated allowed for extremely targeted lessons.

[@Bane_questionmark]

Honestly, the teachers' unions might strike anyway, just to be dicks. Cause that's really all they do anymore, remind everyone that they can still be a pain in the ass. " *WE EXIST*" " *WE'RE STILL RELEVANT*" " *JUST A PRANK, BRO*"

[@MagnusvonYoshi]

... if the teachers didn't matter in adding games to the classroom, the action of the unions would be irrelevant, wouldn't it?

[@preuenthegreat518]

"We don't need you to work here anymore." "Yeah? Well we aren't going to work if you do that!"

[@johncassleman4104]

No. Teaching unions are still powerful entities - the National Education Association is the biggest union in the US by over 1 million members. Even if teachers are made "irrelevant", which I would argue, they never would be, they would still fight to the death for their jobs. We still have terrible teachers teaching, doing harm to students, because of the unions' desires to help teachers keep their jobs.

[@sadram.a.9833]

Hey, if you are reading this have a nice day!!!!Great video by the way :D

[@RealQwerty1998]

HOLY CRAP! I'm sitting in Sun Prairie Wisconsin right now and graduated from it's high school a month ago but didn't even know this happened in my school and my siblings schools!

[@heavyweaponsgaming]

Interactive simulations like the one in the study have been used in classrooms for some time, but I wonder how much more we could accomplish with a fully realized game that is designed to accommodate learning? A game that is well-rounded, competitive and engaging in its own right (even if played non-educationally) like Minecraft could be very powerful if used properly.

[@onyxtay7246]

Actually I remember my cousins mentioning they have a class where they use minecraft. (I don't remember the what the class was about.) It makes sense though. Minecraft forces you to think geometrically. Even before I was doing geometry I was able to answer some of the harder questions in my sisters geometry textbook.

[@mikaeluusi-makela7648]

We actually worked on the educational version for the last five years and it ended up in around 15,000 schools around the world, 8,000 in the U.S. Microsoft acquired it back in January and are now working on their own version: education.minecraft.net

[@j.c.2240]

It could teach geology, currently has an education mode about chemistry, and depending on how knowledgeable the teacher is at the game, could be used to teach economics, the structure of civilization, or cartography. With some mods, you could even use it to teach zoology concepts and architecture (though technically you could do that anyway)

[@Gamer-Crafts]

"We put a (LINK) down below" !! Well played EC . Well played indeed ...

[@lucetubegplusstillsux2678]

Yes a good teacher can even make the current systems learning fun, in fact my earliest memories were playing stuff like Number Munchers and Word rescue on old computers. Sadly after elementary school computers and were barely involved in my education but I credit those early experiences with my typing and programming abilities today.

[@bagandtag4391]

So future kids are going to be super prepared for the future and stuff and I'm gonna sit here with my anxiety? :

[@kurisu7885]

And sadly some are going to try to keep it broken,.

[@Ark7760]

I'm just sitting here twiddling my thumbs about the 3 books I have to read for a summer assignment that I don't wanna do...

[@icedragon769]

At least the education system is publicly funded, so we can do these experiments and it's all for the same of the kids rather than for making money.

[@miccha9342]

To be fair, I am pretty sure that most generations kind of went through this every time education got a step up.

[@borg286]

Short version. That was so good. Bravo

[@paulinefraser176]

Thank you!! I will be using this episode to continue my work of educating teachers about the value of game based learning and gamification!

[@fvb7]

I work for a company where we're taking this up a step. we teach kids k-8 programming, and have them program their own games. A lot of schools in the area do as well.

[@oliverdevega]

That's awesome. And what about games that teach game design? That would be like breaking the 4th wall :)

[@PrimordialNightmare]

And it has a incredible narrative.

[@AllisonFleisch]

Yeah, there are a couple cases like Stanley Parable... The best example I've seen is probably The Magic Circle

[@KarlTheCool]

See: Juice it or Lose it

[@thearcheduck8746]

games like that exist.

[@NathanK97]

how would someone learn to make that game? we would need to make a game that teaches people how to design games that teach game design if we go another layer down the kick wont work we might be stuck under for years but it would only be seconds topside

[@readcomplain]

I really love these videos about games in education. I want to be a teacher, and this really makes me think about how to be a good educator. I very much agree with you that games have a great untapped potential in the education system, but i think that those who need it most are unfortunately those who can least afford it. When I was in high school in the inner city, we could barely afford books for each student and our bathrooms didn't have doors on the stalls. We had a few computers running windows xp (in 2013), but certainly not enough to support a classroom gaming system. Any school district that can afford educational games has enough resources to effectively educate students anyway, and they are likely to have other advantages unrelated to funding. In addition to smaller class-sizes and better teachers, it is likely that students at private and richer public schools will go home to (two!) college- educated parents instead of gunshots. While I don't begrudge anyone a good education, many students who receive game-based learning are already getting one, regardless of the game. The kids who need it the most are the least likely to be receiving such a great opportunity. What can we do to get both the hardware and the software into the hands of the neediest students?

[@TheDeathtoll99]

Hey is there a place where i can donate for games for good it seems like a great cause

[@stevethepocket]

+wariodude128 He meant the "Games for Good" thing they talked about at the beginning.

[@Emsarrev]

Athene shills DansGame

[@Winchestro]

"solar system simulation" and "solar system visualization" are both very good words I would search for when learning. But I can't imagine someone in that situation searching for "a game where you move planets around.". It's one of those things you only naively search for once, land on some extremely terrible gaming blog and start feeling extremely stupid. Contrary to popular belief calling something a game doesn't magically make it interesting. It actually just makes it invisible to everyone except super specific people in super specific bubbles. Who would never touch something unless it's called "game".

[@neeneko]

Great topic. Having spent part of my career working on educational games, there was always a demand for 'metrics' regarding how the students were doing, but there was always so little idea of what this would actually look like or how it should behave. Very frustrating and probably sunk several of the projects.

[@patrickanderson9558]

The problem is getting the students interest in the subject material which the video games industry has mastered to the point of it being labeled as an addiction yet the main mechanics that cause this are often discarded with the main focus of providing a bare bones gimmick that has exactly the content for it to be "educational material". The best educational video game simply puts the player in an environment which is heavily influenced by the subject being studied and gives the player goals which require them to understand the material to complete. This way the game gives the player information that they are searching for rather than force feeding them then punishing them if they lose.

[@Blabla130]

I'm glad that the education system is finally wising-up and starting to teach kids stuff that they will really need to know in the 21st century. Like that they should get used to their every move and expression be recorded, logged and analysed constantly.

[@brhim5731]

The only "games" i got in school (one of the highest regarded PUBLIC schools in the nation) were typing training and little multiple choice history games that if you got a question wrong it would immediately tell you the answer, keep in mind that everyone in my school gets Ipads and out school got a grant for 15 3d printers that are never used

[@Atopico8]

Very interesting case study. More evidence that games are becoming a more relevant tool for learning. Loved this episode.

[@heinzerhard2077]

did you just make a meta pokemon joke about "shorts guy"?

[@pollack386]

And an Undertale one.

[@ddynamite3835]

Yep

[@234fddesa]

"I like shorts, they're comfortable and easy to wear."

[@hoodiesticks]

Where in the video is this?

[@warpdrivefueledbyinsomnia8165]

1:48

[@kin2naruto]

Oh wow... I just realized that the question is not putting games "in" to education but rather putting games BACK into education. Before the advent of computers you had to do a lot more analysis and problem solving for even the simplest tasks. For example - Looking up how to spell a word in a physical dictionary means having to do logical deduction on the probable spelling of that word. Using that physical dictionary also means being exposed to NEW words every time you turn a page. The Dewey Decimal system shelves books by IDEAS, not just author last name. So the book that is useful for your project is probably sitting next to several other useful books. And every research project I had needed to use at least 3 or 4 different "idea sections" in the library. And every search of the library walks you past ideas you've never seen before. Modern wiki searches are much more specific then that. So younger students have lost that element of getting "lost" in new knowledge. (Getting sucked into TV tropes is not the same) And what about the traditional essay tests that are now being replaced by standardized multiple choice questions? Or the even more outdated ORAL exams? There is an element of deduction, creativity and logical thinking you don't need for a scan-tron test. How many other elements of modern gaming can you think of that exist in old-fashioned schooling methods?

[@Elemental-Phoenix]

one thing that's really ignored when it comes to school (which frustrates me) is student priority. For example, i'm going to prioritize my math/sciences higher then my liberal arts because i want to go into a very technical field (robotics), and if we focused on say, my history class you could sit there and yell at me for getting Cs-Bs instead of Bs-As, but in reality I'm just exercising time management and understanding my limits. A simple look at a student's score tells you nothing about the average student in school, you need to look at what the student cares about and how naturally intelligent they are. what i'm trying to put into perspective is that a student isn't taking a single class, they're taking 4 or 5, maybe even more.

[@blazinghookshot6333]

But there's good reason to why you need to learn and understand subjects that may not actually help in what you want to be. The fact that you may never get what you studied so hard for. To put it simply if one person focused all his/her studies to get into the medical fields but was unable to get a degree to get them a job there then they have to pretty much work in a low standard job because they know only what they so strongly studied for. But hey I'm just a kid so take my words lightly.

[@Elemental-Phoenix]

blazinghookshot I understand this. I'm trying to point out the statistical flaw in simply looking at a single class and the student's performance in that class only. And if someone focuses on a single field for all their studies, I agree that they're not doing it right. I'm going for a major in mechanical and a minor in electrical so from that point i can do most engineering jobs but i can focus on robotics as an emphasis. What i'm saying is that a student (like me) is going to prioritize calculus over language because for a technical student, we're not going to go into language interpretation. German is useful yes, but i'm going to focus on getting an A in calculus because it applies to most sciences and engineering, while German is a supplementary tool that won't hurt me too much if i don't preform well in (still got an A in it anyway but whatever).

[@neeneko]

In pre-college school, ignoring student priority is part of the design. Part of being an adult teaching kids is dealing with the fact kids, while they have all sorts of ideas, do not really have a good idea of what they need. For a while there were experiments with 'engineering highschools' and earlier, which allowed for this kind of self directed prioritization. As a professional today, I can barely stand to be around the people who went through these programs, and companies often have to do extra 'management' to handle them. They are a nightmare to work with, and their professional skills usually end up being pretty weak anyway since they never bothered to exersize the other parts of their brain enough. So while _some_ self direction is useful, pushing back against self assigned priorities and not letting students hyperfocus in one domain to the detriment of others is a critical task for a teacher.

[@Elemental-Phoenix]

neeneko I'm not arguing for that at all. All i'm saying is that people are going to exercise time management and prioritize that which will help them the most in their future.

[@Severin44a]

The difference between our experiences is uncanny. I know people who dropped out of public school entirely in order to take up apprenticeships, therefor never learning anything outside of their area of expertise. Most of them are now considered the best in their field, and do work on a national level. Then again, we are both describing case studies. Not much proof either way, it seems.

[@DurekuDragon]

I can't wait for you guys to talk about project based learning, i really hope you mention my school, Valley New School, the country's leading project based learning school.

[@DoctorCuriosity]

Nice! I've been doing this kind of thing with computer science education in virtual worlds (including MinecraftEdu). Thesis defence in two weeks!

[@voltage6188]

Awesome! I can't wait for this to become an international matter. This may be the future.

[@CornishCreamtea07]

Try asking your school/college/university to install a new program. After so many months they install it, a few more months it starts to actual work on their systems. And maybe just before you leave they finally get it working correctly.

[@dklk734]

I am looking forward to the future. It will be exciting to see things like this implemented.

[@EuropeanQoheleth]

I tend to think of games as a time kill although with some educational value in terms of learning about economics; (for example spending exp to level up a stat will make the character perform better and you get more exp being an example of a virtuous cycle and the principle of investment) but seeing this makes me convinced that games can very much help with learning as a whole. I believed this a little bit previously but now I very much believe it.

[@likikoari]

this is actually quite similar to a program I'm attempting to implicate into schools. I often times find that by the time people are reaching college many students still have no real idea on what to do with their life. what I plan to do is take a club type system and turn it into a learning experience where people can go 'I'm thinking I want to be a fashion designer' or maybe ' a detective' then we create a situation in which they can apply these skills or help them find somewhere else safe they can try those skills. It's an idea that is still limited and in development but if there are any high school students in Canada interested in helping out with this plan please let me know. anyway great video as always and thanks for being awesome!~

[@MichelFialloPerez]

You could have just said "A Force Multiplier is like the Quad Damage powerup in Quake" and we all would have got you.

[@chatboss000]

As expected, the hybrid system works best. Here's my issue- all the gamers are up in arms like 'yay, games can help education, woo!' But what about people who don't have an interest in videogames? They'll just end up being left behind if they aren't the type to quickly grasp game mechanics or concepts. My other concern is eyestrain, as someone who has been staring at screens for multiple years(am 18 now, and my perscriptiom keeps going up) I don't really feel comfortable with bright screens becoming a standard in classrooms. I like reading on paper or a kindle paperwhite more, for example.

[@Dengakuman22]

Quantitatively, I don't think that 6% to 10% increase to be that much significant. How many times was the study replicated? Sadly, this might as well be purely coincidental for what I know. Don't misunderstand me, I love the idea of teaching with games but studies as such should be carried away more rigorously. Otherwise they're just hurting the credibility of the cause.

[@JimCullen]

You're right to question the validity of the study based on sample size. A study like this would need to be done in a wide variety of socio-economic areas, a number of subject areas, and a number of times with large numbers of students for each combination of those, before its results can truly be considered reliable. However, the 6% to 10% increase _is_ a quantitatively significant one. That's an *over 50%* increase. We can't know for certain if it is _statistically_ significant without knowing the sample size to run a null hypothesis test, but at the very least, the _effect magnitude_ is significant enough to be worth it, if it does hold up.

[@RobertCleggRC]

Maybe the original game sucked.

[@Sagami930]

Pokemon go episode?

[@monkeyorful]

i would wait to see the effects a little more, we didnt already know if the next week this is going to be past (personally i dont think that but...)

[@asKiFTW]

who?

[@Ali-lo4fz]

+Sphere S global offensive omg xD

[@Deviknyte_]

They should do a Niantic episode. Talk about Ingress & Go.

[@Sagami930]

+Sphere S sure wasn't there a scandal going on

[@CrotaroLP]

That is so great and I love how people try getting video games as tools into classrooms. We all know that none of us will be directly affected by it, if it becomes the norm over time, because we either are done with school already or know we'll graduate before our schools adopt it, yet we do it in hopes of helping future students and teachers. I'm sorry for the ramble^^ I guess what I'm trying to say is: True altruism rocks! \m/

[@NochSoEinKaddiFan]

Spread the word was one of my favourite puns so far :'D Those are some interesting results, it would open up teaching from a frontal to an immersive experience. That stimulates emotions and information connected with emotions makes for long term learning :)

[@afishhouttawater]

I love these so much! I actually taught myself how to read playing pokemon mystery dungeon

[@kierannurmi5488]

It sounds like the problem here relates to it being a sandbox game rather than something more structured.

[@petfriendamy]

Aha, I believe it. I was homeschooled growing up, which mostly involved playing edutainment games. In hindsight, I wish my parents were a little more hands-on, since I had a habit of restarting the game the moment it got too hard.

[@NGTGO]

I would suggest you guys read Little Wars and Floor Games by H.G. Wells. There is some solid information there on making Games for Schools.

[@jehovaservant_591]

I USED TO LIVE IN SUN PRARIE!!! OMGOSH YES GOOD ON YOU SUN PRARIE!!!

[@Delrithkill]

Have you considered talking about how mega-games could be useful as a study into how games can be great as learning experiences? They're not video games, but they rely on systems and mechanical understanding to make them work.