Games in Education BUILD SOCIAL SKILLS & COOPERATIVENESS ENGENDER FAIR PLAY & HEALTHY COMPETITIVENESS INSPIRE PLANNING & EXECUTION PROMOTE CONCENTRATION & OBSERVATION EXEMPLIFY PLAYING TO WIN WITH GOOD SPORTSMANSHIP ...AND TEACH A WIDE VARIETY OF SUBJECTS WHILE YOUR STUDENTS THINK THEY’RE JUST HAVING FUN. Brochure #4 Revised Edition MathMath && ScienceScience HOW TO INTRODUCE & EXPAND MATH CONCEPTS THROUGH GAMES WHAT STUDENTS HAVE TO SAY ABOUT GOOD GAMES GAMA’S GAMES IN THE CLASSROOM REVIEW GAMES FOR TEACHERS PROGRAM Version 2.0, Printed June 2003. © 2003 GAMA, the Game Manufacturers Association. Permission to photocopy but not sell is granted. All other rights reserved. 1 PlayPlay ForFor EducationEducation The complete series of Games In Education brochures are available on the internet, www.gama.org THIS IS THE FOURTH IN A SERIES ... a series that has developed by our culling the best of those newsletter articles. Developed by teachers playing games in classrooms and publishing observations about their usefulness. SPECIAL NOTE It should be noted that, as with any creative work, not all games are for all ages. Be sure to check for content! BROCHURES IN THIS SERIES: 1. An Introduction To Games In The Classroom. 2. Improving English skills with games in the classroom. 3. Teaching History and Social Studies through games. 4. Games to introduce and expand Math & Science concepts. THESE BROCHURES ARE FREE TO TEACHERS GAMA will provide a copy to any teacher who requests it. GAMA grants permission to teachers to photocopy this brochure at will, for your own use, to give to other teachers, but not for sale. We ask that any teacher who gets a copy contact us. We’ll add you to our growing mailing list of teachers who might use games in their classrooms, and we’ll mail you future brochures as each is published. THESE ARE LIVING DOCUMENTS This brochure and the series will evolve over the years. We’ll add more game -GAMA’s Executive Director, Mark Simmons, reviews, including yours if you send it to us! You will gain a published work credit in action educating the viewers about the while benefitting other teachers. The point of this series is to share knowledge, the values of games in this television interview at continually evolving knowledge of how to make learning more fun, how to engage Origins 2001. students, and how to make your calling of teaching a bit more enjoyable. SEE INSIDE BACK COVER FOR SPECIAL PROGRAM NOTES Game publishers are naturally interested in teachers using games to educate. Some are willing to give you their games free, some are able to sell you games at wholesale prices. Each year in early July thousands of game enthusiasts gather to play at GAMA‘s showcase convention Origins®, the International Game Expo and Fair. Amongst over a thousand scheduled events are demonstrations of new games and introductions to a huge variety of games. Naturally, David Millians gives a seminar(s) on using games in educational settings. In the future, depending on teacher interest, the seminars roster may include more and more seminars & workshops on this key element of getting kids involved and INTERNATIONAL GAME EXPO. COLUMBUS, OHIO enthusiastic about learning. Contact GAMA’s Executive Director for more information. GAMA CONTACTS: For Publications: GAMA Publications Request 80 Garden Center, Ste.16. Broomfield, CO. 80020 Phone 303-635-2223 Fax 303-469-2878 The objective of the Game Manufacturers Association is to promote the general interest of all persons Games in Education: David Millians email [email protected] engaged in the buying, selling, licensing, or manu- Games in Education: Richard Martin-Leep email [email protected] facturing of gaming products. Naturally, if we can GAMA Executive Director: Mark Simmons email email ma.org help you teach with games we all win! 2 GAMES IN EDUCATION: MATH AND SCIENCE We are delighted that we continue to get such positive INTRODUCTION feedback for the Games In Education program. Thank you for by David Millians the support and classroom ideas, we are working on editing them for future publications. "What was the chance of that?" "How can we build it better?" A Few Quick Thoughts On Science and Roleplaying; "What came before this? Role-playing games can be a powerful tool for explor- "Hey, I did it!" ing scientific theory in the classroom. You may want to use only the basics of a game (GURPS is a universal role-play system, see All games provoke mental activity, and this can be pg. 12 for a review) or you may want to use a game as is. channeled toward investigations of a mathematical or scientific By using a role-playing game a basic principle of quality. This brochure highlights some of the many games physics may be altered or dropped completely from a scenario. applicable in math and science classrooms. Games offer not The students then theorize through role-playing how this would just an opportunity for pleasurable learning, they also supple- affect their interaction with the environment. Civilization games ment text book and paper and pencil work with activities that rely on scientific advances such as learning agriculture or allowing the students to experiment and manipulate the metallurgy illustrate how one advancement logically leads to the abstract they have have studied or which they are to explore next advancement. The focus is on the progression from one next and more formally with their teachers. step to the next as a logical sequence. There are role-playing games that maintain a realistic scientific base built on principles Some of the games discussed here have clear, immedi- and technology we understand currently. These games often ate applications in classrooms. Other have been included for make projections of scientific and technological advances that their more subtle instructional possibilities. Many games share might emerge. The students are then able to think through the qualities which observant teachers can use to direct students' logic behind these assumptions. thinking and understanding. Some games have specific Games such as we’ve discussed help students under- advantages in some aspect of mathematics and science. stand the formation of scientific theory, based on logical speculation of outcomes within given perimeters. Role-playing * Every game requires its players to keep track of their actions games are a tool to create simulations, since actual experiments and those of their team mates and opponents, to categorize of these concepts are beyond the scope of the classroom. and organize information, to problem-solve, to form strategies, and many other skills valuable in math and science and life. -RML- * Games of chance rapidly generate extensive examples and data which teachers can examine more closely with their students. Students can track their die rolls, cards, and progress in the game, using this information later to understand better Editor, David Millians, Paideia aspects of arithmetic, probability, statistics, algebra, and School, Atlanta Georgia, USA. Many geometry. teachers know that games are quite useful in the classroom. Some of * Simulations allow teachers to give students hands-on experi- them have been contributing their ence in areas normally inaccessible for them. These can include knowledge to the Games in Educa- astronomy, cutting edge technologies, dinosaurs, disease, tion newsletter that Atlanta teacher massive engineering projects, the stock market, or speculative David Millians has been publishing and as yet unknown questions about the nature of the world or for eight years. the application of new ideas and technology. You cannot always take the class out to play baseball as a means to explor- Mark Simmons is the Executive ing probability, but there is a baseball board game waiting for Director for the Game Manufactur- you! ers Association, GAMA, as well as publisher of Games Quarterly Games are not frivolous activities. They can heighten Catalog. He works and plays in and expand the learning available to the wide range of learners and around the “Crowned City of in any classroom. They can introduce a new concept, allow for the Planes” in Colorado. eager practice of certain skills, and solidify education for chil- dren and adults. Use what benefits your classroom! Richard Martin-Leep (-RML-) is Editor of Games Quarterly Catalog and was a Curriculum Director and a Teacher for six and a half years. He was trained in Montessori and ages pre-6. 3 RAILWAY RIVALS IN MATHS CLASS ROBORALLY by Alan Parr, originally appeared in Mathematics in School in by John Ward May 1984 One of our favorite games at my Friday afterschool Railway Rivals, by David Watts, was designed as an aid game days is RoboRally by Wizards of the Coast. You and your to the teaching of geography, and it certainly possesses enough opponents play factory computers participating in an obstacle geographical, historical, and cultural merits to justify its use in course race across the factory floor. You each have several the classroom. It's a game for about four to six players or "copies" (lives) of your racing robot in storage, in case one gets teams and is played on map made up of a grid of hexagons. blown up. Among the obstacles are conveyor belts, pits, cutting The game has two phases. In the first phase the players build lasers, and crushers. Along the way, you can find a repair station competing networks with the intention of connecting towns on or even have options (extra gadgets) put on your robot. the map as efficiently as possible, and in the second phase races are run to make deliveries from one town to another. To begin a turn, everyone is dealt nine cards. You pick the five cards you want your robot to follow and place them in a This game was used in mathematics lessons but could stack IN ORDER.