I absolutely believe that gaming can be used as an educational tool! Using games, I think that we can “trick” students into fostering skills like computational thinking, problem-solving, critical thinking, and decision-making. By integrating digital games into the curriculum, we can create immersive and interactive learning environments for our students!
Whether it’s reinforcing vocabulary, practicing math concepts, or exploring historical events, I think that games can directly support the achievement of specific learning objectives of core subject areas. In addition to subject-specific learning, gaming can also support the development of digital literacy—a critical skill for success in today’s increasingly technological world. Digital literacy involves the ability to use technology to access, manage, evaluate, and to create information. It is a skill that, like all other core subjects, requires practice and development — which games can facilitate in an engaging way!
Right now I’m leaning towards teaching a 4/5 grade level, and I’m not sure if coding would work at that age group. I spend one day every week in a grade 4/5 class, and one thing I’ve noticed is that the students have incredibly varying levels of math and literacy skills. There are students in that class who are working on multiplication and division, while some are still learning how to convert numbers from expanded form to standard form. However, maybe I could pick an activity where students work at their own pace and can pick their own challenge levels. Game-based learning has so many benefits, including interactivity, immediate feedback, customization, and enhanced accessibility, to name just a few. I’m eager to find ways to integrate gaming into my classrooms, hopefully* across all age groups.
This is a screenshot of the coding project that I worked on for this class! It was called Music Lab: Jam Session and it was super fun. I was really grateful for their clear instructions — everything was outlined perfectly and was easy to follow. The activity was self-guided, and was advertised for grades three and up. In the Music Lab, students remix tracks from artists like Sabrina Carpenter, Lady Gaga, and Shakira while mastering coding basics such as sequencing, functions, and exploring AI-driven beat creation. It was a super creative activity that I would love to do with my students!