As an individual who is just stepping into their career, I often have mixed feelings regarding games in education. I am traditional in terms of using a paper and pencil, specifically within my concentration of math, however am all for supporting instruction with game use. Reading through the articles that follow the module, my very formed opinion became a bit foggy considering the benefits of the challenge and always working at the edge of student ability.
The game I am introducing is entitled "Blooket". There are many ways in which to use the game, my particular "deck" concerning math facts. There are options to create your own deck about everything from science, to social emotional learning, to math facts, to simple fun logo games. In between questions the kids are to engage in a game like situation, one being a cafe style simulation where you are serving customers or a coding and hacking simulation. The students tend to appreciate the variability and changing up the accompanying game regularly. As you can see below, the game is very colorful and animated which in and of itself is a motivator and engagement tool for most students.
Link to Blooket:
https://play.blooket.com/play?hwId=67ef32ccf5df82fa029ec07d
Blooket in particular I feel is a great supplemental game, but would not suffice as a lesson in and of itself. Another way to use this game may be as a test or quiz review. I personally use this game as an introduction or a closing to a particular lesson. My students also engage in WIN (What I Need) time in which if they are all caught up they may have Blookets posted to refresh or further develop particular terms/concepts/facts on special occasions.
I did not have the privilege of starting the school year with these students, but feel that if I were to implement this game from the very beginning of the year the most important piece of the set-up would be to set the expectation that this is a game for learning not a game for fun. There are game sets that are "silly" sets designed for game play only, which sure can be fun for students during free time, but not during the time in which teachers are using this program as a way to assess and expand student thinking.
My first thought is implementing this to support math fact fluency. I am finding that my fifth grade students are very unfamiliar with their math facts which makes it difficult to enhance concepts when we take up a significant amount of time to work through the calculation. To do so, I may have learning objectives by week, such as "Students will be able to articulate their 8's facts by memory or skip counting". Please note that there are exceptions to this learning objective in situations where students have accommodations such as a multiplication chart.
In using Blooket, students have the ability to develop a certain competitive language when playing the live version. Students are working against each other in the live function and tend to feel thrilled as they do not have to have their own name. I feel that students can be free to make mistakes when their name is not necessarily theirs and their peers cannot make comments about their abilities. In the homework function, students can work against their own goals daily and again, compete against themselves.
Hi Arianna,
ReplyDeleteI have heard of Blooket before, but have never used it myself or even seen what it looked like, so this was very interesting to me! I teach elementary school as well, so I see how this would be really engaging for students. I also completely agree about these young students not knowing their basic facts, and it makes future lessons and word problems require so much more work if they do not know their facts. I think this game would be great practice for that. I liked how you pointed out that students could find sets that are just for fun and not educational, because I notice a lot subbing that students say their teacher lets them use this website, but what they are playing has absolutely no educational or learning component to it. I agree that making your expectations clear in the beginning would be very important. I think you did a great job analyzing this game!
Hi Arianna, I have heard of Blooket before and have observed teachers who have used it in their classrooms. I think it is a great game that can reinforce learning material from a lesson or unit and makes for a great tool to help review material with students. I also like how there are a variety of games to choose from and that not all of them are competitive. I think that makes the game more fun because students do not have to worry about competing with each other in some of the games. I really like the idea of using Blooket to help students review material and think it can really help reinforce content for students.
ReplyDeleteHi Arianna,
ReplyDeleteI totally get where you're coming from it's tough to balance traditional methods with new tools. But "Blooket" sounds like a great way to keep students engaged while reinforcing math facts. The different game modes and colorful design definitely make learning fun and motivating. It’s awesome that you're open to mixing things up to support your students.