Games are a great way to organize a group of people for joint activities, encourage a person to take certain actions, increase motivation and look at routine work from a new perspective. The famous example of Tom Sawyer, described by Mark Twain, shows that you can captivate others even with such a boring task as painting a fence - if you approach the matter with imagination.
Game technologies in pedagogy “work” in a similar way. They help present the educational process as an entertaining, interesting activity, preserving all its benefits. This is an integral part of preschool, school and even vocational education.
Game-based learning technologies are ways, methods and techniques by which a teacher (teacher):
- sets situations in which students must find themselves in order to gain knowledge or practical useful experience;
- creates circumstances that encourage students to make independent decisions - in order to later draw conclusions and work through mistakes;
- offers a choice - different social roles and “masks”, options for solving problems that allow you to get to know yourself better, control your behavior, and cope more effectively with a difficult matter;
- creates an environment for increasing motivation by activating the imagination, the “spirit of competition,” excitement, and group activities.
Functionality of the teaching method
Play is the most important aspect of children's interactive learning. It allows the child’s personality to develop more freely, revealing individuality and realizing natural abilities and inclinations. While playing, children of preschool and school age remember more information, absorb it better, and learn to work with their rational thinking and emotions. Therefore, gaming technologies in pedagogy have many functions that can even be called missions. This:
- Motivation and self-realization. The child should not be forced to play. He will willingly complete the task himself and treat it responsibly. With the help of gaming technologies, you can awaken children's interest in a useful process, entertain them and inspire them to new achievements.
- Socialization. Game-based pedagogical technologies place children in conditions where they must interact with other participants. A safe and interesting environment helps to overcome pressures and embarrassment, learn to understand others, make it easier to make contact and not be afraid of it.
- Communication, including interethnic and intercultural. When playing, it is easier for children to understand people with views and principles. different from their own. This helps to assimilate the general sociocultural values of civilization.
- Therapy and correction. Using gaming technologies, you can resolve a difficult situation by projecting it onto an emotionally comfortable and understandable situation. Psychological and behavioral correction occurs naturally, helping students overcome antisocial behavior and emotional trauma.
- Diagnostics. Game techniques make it easier for the teacher to determine the child’s inclinations and personality characteristics. This helps to select effective educational methods. Children reveal themselves to the maximum during play and do not hide their true emotions, which increases the accuracy of psychological and pedagogical diagnostics.
Using gaming technology in action
A game is useful if it is as close as possible to real life situations. Therefore, it needs to be integrated into the educational process. Gaming technologies are used independently and as an element of a more general, traditional teaching methodology. They help children more easily master the topics of academic disciplines, and it is easier for a teacher or extracurricular teacher to control and guide the process.
However, you need to be able to use the game method in order for it to have an effect. When using such technologies in action, it is necessary:
- draw up plans, goals in advance and carefully develop the components of the game - images, conditions, processes, plot, communication between participants;
- set a didactic goal for the participants, but reproduce the rules only in a playful form;
- use educational material as a means of play;
- connect the result of the game with the completion of a learning task - for example, you can win by solving an exercise well or memorizing a poem;
- build a lesson according to the rules of the game - the work and behavior of students should depend on them;
- introduce a competitive element into the educational process - it helps to transform a didactic task into a game one.
When using gaming technologies, it is important to decide whether they are relevant for a specific topic or subject of study and to monitor the balance of the entertainment component and the actual study.
Center for Teacher Training for Certification
Human culture arose and unfolds in play, like a game.
J. Huizinga
Play, along with work and study, is one of the main types of human activity, an amazing phenomenon of our existence. By definition, a game is a type of activity in situations aimed at recreating and assimilating social experience, in which self-control of behavior is formed and improved.
In human practice, gaming activity performs the following functions:
— entertaining
(this is the main function of the game - to entertain, give pleasure, inspire, arouse interest);
— communicative:
mastering the dialectics of communication;
— self-realization
in the game as a testing ground for human practice;
— play therapy:
overcoming various difficulties that arise in other types of life;
— diagnostic:
identification of deviations from normative behavior, self-knowledge during the game;
— correction function:
making positive changes to the structure of personal indicators;
— interethnic communication:
the assimilation of socio-cultural values common to all people;
— socialization:
inclusion in the system of social relations, assimilation of the norms of human society.
Most games have four main features (according to S.A. Shmakov):
•
free
developmental
activity,
undertaken only at the request of the child, for the sake of pleasure from the process of activity itself, and not just from the result (procedural pleasure);
• creative,
largely improvisational, very active
nature
of this activity (“field of creativity”);
, R.G. Khazankina, K.V. Makhova and others.
• emotional elation
activities, rivalry, competitiveness, competition, attraction, etc. (sensual nature of the game, “emotional tension”);
• Availability
direct or indirect
rules
reflecting the content of the game, the logical and temporal sequence of its development.
Into the structure of the game as an activity
organically includes goal setting, planning, goal implementation, as well as analysis of the results in which the individual fully realizes himself as a subject. The motivation of gaming activity is ensured by its voluntariness, opportunities for choice and elements of competition, satisfying the need for self-affirmation and self-realization.
Into the structure of the game as a process
includes:
a) roles taken on by those playing;
b) game actions as a means of realizing these roles;
c) playful use of objects, i.e. replacement of real things with game, conditional ones;
d) real relationships between the players;
e) plot (content) - an area of reality that is conventionally reproduced in the game.
The value of the game cannot be exhausted and assessed by its entertainment and recreational capabilities. This is its phenomenon that, being entertainment and relaxation, it can develop into learning, creativity, therapy, a model of the type of human relationships and manifestations in work.
Game as a teaching method
People have been using this technique to transfer the experience of older generations to younger ones since ancient times. The game is widely used in folk pedagogy, in preschool and out-of-school institutions. In a modern school that relies on the activation and intensification of the educational process, gaming activities are used in the following cases:
- as independent technologies for mastering a concept, topic, and even a section of an academic subject;
- as elements (sometimes very significant) of a broader technology;
- as a lesson (lesson) or part of it (introduction, explanation, reinforcement, exercise, control);
- as technologies for extracurricular activities (games such as “Zarnitsa”, “Eaglet”, KTD, etc.).
The concept of “game pedagogical technologies”
includes a fairly extensive group of methods and techniques for organizing the pedagogical process in the form of various
pedagogical games.
Unlike games in general, a pedagogical game has an essential feature - a clearly defined learning goal and a corresponding pedagogical result, which can be justified, identified explicitly and characterized by an educational-cognitive orientation.
The game form of classes is created in lessons with the help of game techniques and situations that act as a means of inducing and stimulating students to learn.
The implementation of game techniques and situations in the lesson form of classes occurs in the following main directions: a didactic goal is set for students in the form of a game task; educational activities are subject to the rules of the game; educational material is used as its means, an element of competition is introduced into educational activities, which transforms the didactic task into a game one; successful completion of a didactic task is associated with the game result.
The place and role of gaming technology in the educational process, the combination of game and learning elements largely depend on the teacher’s understanding of the functions and classification of pedagogical games.
First of all, games should be divided by type of activity.
on physical (motor), intellectual (mental), labor, social and psychological.
By the nature of the pedagogical process
The following groups of games are distinguished:
a) teaching, training, controlling and generalizing;
b) cognitive, educational, developmental;
c) reproductive, productive, creative;
d) communicative, diagnostic, career guidance, psychotechnical, etc.
The typology of pedagogical games based on the nature of the gaming methodology
. We will indicate only the most important types used: subject, plot, role-playing, business, simulation and dramatization games. Games in all school disciplines are distinguished by subject area.
And finally, the specifics of gaming technology are largely determined by the gaming environment: there are games with and without objects, tabletop, indoor, outdoor, on-site, computer and with TSO, as well as with various means of transportation.
Classification parameters of gaming technologies
By level of application:
all levels.
On a philosophical basis:
adaptable.
According to the main development factor:
psychogenic.
According to the concept of learning experience:
associative-reflex + gestalt + suggestion.
By orientation to personal structures:
ZUN
+
COURT
+
SUM
+
SEN
+
SDP.
By the nature of the content:
all types + penetrating.
By type of control:
all types - from a consultation system to a software one.
By organizational form:
all forms.
On approach to the child:
free education.
According to the prevailing method:
developing, exploratory, creative.
In the direction of modernization:
activation.
By category of trainees:
mass, all categories.
Range of target orientations
• Didactic: broadening horizons, cognitive activity; application of ZUN in practical activities; formation of certain skills and abilities necessary in practical activities; development of general educational skills; development of labor skills.
• Educating: nurturing independence, will; the formation of certain approaches, positions, moral, aesthetic and ideological attitudes; fostering cooperation, collectivism, sociability, and communication skills.
• Developmental: development of attention, memory, speech, thinking, skills to compare, contrast, find analogies, imagination, fantasy, creativity, empathy, reflection, ability to find optimal solutions; development of motivation for educational activities.
• Socializing: familiarization with the norms and values of society; adaptation to environmental conditions; stress control, self-regulation; communication training; psychotherapy.
Conceptual foundations of gaming technologies
• Psychological mechanisms of gaming activity are based on the fundamental needs of the individual for self-expression, self-affirmation, self-determination, self-regulation, self-realization.
• Game is a form of psychogenic behavior, i.e. internal, immanent of the personality (D.N. Uznadze).
• Game is a space for a child’s “internal socialization”, a means of assimilating social attitudes (L.S. Vygotsky).
• Game is personal freedom in the imagination, “illusory realization of unrealized interests” (A.N. Leontyev).
• The ability to engage in a game is not related to a person’s age, but at each age the game has its own characteristics.
• The content of children's games develops from games in which the main content is objective activity, to games that reflect relationships between people, and, finally, to games in which the main content is obedience to the rules of social behavior and relationships between people.
• In the age periodization of children (D.B. Elkonin), a special role is assigned to leading activities, which have their own content for each age. In each leading activity, corresponding mental new formations arise and are formed. Play is the leading activity for preschool age.
Features of gaming technologies
All age periods following preschool with their leading types of activities (primary school age - educational activities, middle school age - socially useful, senior school age - educational and professional activities) do not displace play, but continue to include it in the process
Gaming technologies in the preschool period
The child masters role play by the third year of life, becomes familiar with human relationships, begins to distinguish between the external and internal aspects of phenomena, discovers the presence of experiences and begins to navigate them.
The child develops imagination and the symbolic function of consciousness, which allow him to transfer the properties of some things to others, orientation in his own feelings arises and skills of their cultural expression are formed, which allows the child to be involved in collective activities and communication.
As a result of mastering play activities in the preschool period, readiness for socially significant and socially valued learning activities is formed.
Technology of educational games B.P. Nikitin
The game activity program consists of a set of educational games,
which, with all their diversity, proceed from a common idea and have characteristic features.
Each game is a set of tasks,
which the child solves with the help of cubes, bricks, squares made of cardboard or plastic, parts from a mechanical designer, etc. In his books, Nikitin offers educational games with cubes, patterns, Montessori frames and inserts, unicube, plans and maps, squares, “Guess” sets, hundred tables, “dots”, “clocks”, thermometer, bricks, cubes, constructors . Children play with balls, ropes, rubber bands, pebbles, nuts, corks, buttons, sticks, etc. and so on. Subject-based educational games are the basis of construction, labor and technical games, and they are directly related to intelligence.
Tasks are given to the child in various forms: in the form of a model, a flat isometric drawing, a drawing, written or oral instructions, etc., and thus introduce him to different ways of transmitting information.
The tasks have a very wide range of difficulties:
from those that are sometimes accessible to a two or three year old child to those that are beyond the reach of the average adult.
Therefore, games can excite interest for many years (until adulthood). A gradual increase in the difficulty of tasks in games allows the child to move forward
and improve
independently,
i.e.
develop
your
creative abilities,
in contrast to education, where everything is explained and where, basically, only performing traits are formed in the child.
The solution of the problem
appears before the child not in the abstract form of the answer to a mathematical problem, but in the form of a drawing, pattern or structure made of cubes, bricks, construction set parts, i.e.
in the form of
visible and tangible
things.
This allows you to visually compare the “task” with the “solution” and
check the accuracy of the task yourself.
In educational games - this is their main feature - it was possible to combine
one of the basic principles of learning
from simple to complex with
a very important principle of creative activity
independently according to ability,
when a child can rise
to the “ceiling”
of his capabilities. This union allowed the game to solve several problems related to the development of creative abilities:
• educational games can provide “writing” for the development of creative abilities from an early age
age;
• their stepping stone tasks always create conditions that advance
development of abilities;
• rising each time independently to your “ceiling”,
the child develops most successfully;
• educational games can be very diverse in their content
and, besides, like any games, they do not tolerate
coercion
and create an atmosphere
of free
and joyful creativity.
Gaming technologies in primary school age
Primary school age is characterized by brightness and spontaneity of perception, ease of entering into images. Children are easily involved in any activity, especially play, they independently organize themselves into group play, continue playing with objects and toys, and non-imitation games appear.
In the game model of the educational process, the creation of a problem situation occurs through the introduction of a game situation: the problem situation is experienced by the participants in its game embodiment, the basis of the activity is game modeling, and part of the students’ activities takes place in a conditional game plan.
The guys act according to the rules of the game
(so, in the case of role-playing games, according to the logic of the role being played, in simulation-modeling games, along with the role-playing position, the “rules” of the simulated reality apply). The gaming environment also transforms the position of the teacher, who balances between the role of organizer, assistant and accomplice of the overall action.
The results of the game appear in a dual sense
-
as a game and as an educational and cognitive result.
The didactic function of the game is realized through a discussion of the game action, analysis of the relationship of the game situation as a modeling one, its relationship with reality. The most important role in this model belongs to the final retrospective discussion, in which students jointly analyze the course and results of the game, the relationship between the game (simulation) model and reality, as well as the course of educational and game interaction.
The arsenal of elementary school pedagogy contains games that help enrich and consolidate children’s everyday vocabulary and coherent speech; games aimed at developing numerical concepts, learning to count, and games that develop memory, attention, observation, and strengthen the will.
The effectiveness of didactic games depends, firstly, on their systematic use, and secondly, on the purposefulness of the game program in combination with conventional didactic exercises.
Gaming technology
is constructed as a holistic education, covering a certain part of the educational process and united by a common content of plot and character.
It includes sequential games and exercises that develop the ability to identify the main, characteristic features of objects, compare and contrast them; groups of games to generalize objects according to certain characteristics; groups of games, during which primary schoolchildren develop the ability to distinguish real from unreal phenomena; groups of games that develop the ability to control oneself, speed of reaction to a word, phonemic hearing, ingenuity, etc. At the same time, the game plot develops in parallel with the main content of training, helps to intensify the learning process, and master a number of educational elements. Compiling gaming technologies
from individual games and elements is the concern of every elementary school teacher.
In domestic pedagogy there are a number of such gaming technologies (“Samych himself” by V.V. Repkin, “Moomins” by Tomsk authors, characters from “The Wizard of the Emerald City”, “The Adventures of Pinocchio”, etc.) built into the main content of education .
Methods of teaching music theory to children by V.V. Kiryushin.
This technique is based on the correspondence to each musical concept of an animated character (octave - giraffe, third - sister, dissonance - evil wizard, etc.). All heroes experience various adventures in which their essential characteristics and qualities are revealed. Together with the heroes, children from the age of three, unnoticed by themselves, acquire the most complex musical concepts and skills, the concepts of rhythm, tonality, and the beginning of harmony.
Gaming technologies in middle and high school age
In adolescence, there is an intensification of the need to create one’s own world, in the desire for adulthood, rapid development of imagination, fantasy, and the emergence of spontaneous group games.
Features of the game at high school age are a focus on self-affirmation in front of society, a humorous coloring, a desire for practical jokes, and a focus on speech activity.
Business games
A business game is used to solve complex problems of learning new things, consolidating material, developing creative abilities, developing general educational skills, and allows students to understand and study educational material from different perspectives.
Various modifications of business games are used in the educational process: simulation, operational, role-playing games, business theater, psycho and sociodrama.
Analysis, discussion and evaluation phase
game results. Expert presentations, exchange of opinions, students defending their decisions and conclusions. In conclusion, the teacher states the results achieved, notes mistakes, and formulates the final outcome of the lesson. Attention is drawn to comparing the simulation used with the corresponding area of a real person, establishing a connection between the game and the content of the educational subject.
Literature
1. Azarov Yu.P.
Play and work. - M., 1973.
2. Azarov Yu.P.
The art of education. -M., 1979.
3. Anikeeva N.P.
Education through play. - M., 1987.
4. Baev IM.
We play in Russian lessons. - M., 1989.
5. Bern E.
Games People Play. - M., 1988.
6. Gazman O.S. and etc.
To school - with a game. - M., 1991.
7. Dobrinskaya E.I., Sokolov E.V.
Free time and personal development. - L., 1983.
8. Zhuravlev A.P.
Language games on the computer. - M., 1988.
9. Zanko S.F. and etc.
Play and study. - M., 1992.
10. Games - education, training, leisure... / Ed. V.V. Petrusinsky. - M., 1994.
11. Kovalenko V.G.
Didactic games in mathematics lessons. - M., 1990.
12. Carroll L.
Logic game. - M., 1991.
13. Makarenko A.S.
Some conclusions from teaching experience. Op. that. - M., 1958.
14. Minkin E.M.
From play to knowledge. - M., 1983.
15. Nikitin B.P.
Steps to creativity, or educational games. - M., 1990.
16. Pidkasisty P.I., Khaidarov Zh.S.
Game technology in training and development. - M.: RPA, 1996.
17. Samukina N.V.
Organizational and educational games in education. - M.: Public Education, 1996.
18. Spivakoasky A.S.
The game is serious. - M., 1981.
19. Stronin M.F.
Educational games for English lessons. - M, 1981.
20. Fun is in the game. - M.
21. Huizinga I.
In the shadow of tomorrow. - M., 1992.
22. Shmakov S.A.
Students' games are a cultural phenomenon. - M., 1994.
23. Shmakov S.A.
Culture - leisure - child. - M., 1994.
24. Elkonin D.B.
Psychology of the game. - M., 1979.
25. Yanovskaya M.G.
Creative play in educating primary schoolchildren. - M., 1974.
Types of pedagogical games
Each gaming technology consists of individual techniques - that is, games. There are many types of them, which allows you to flexibly choose teaching tools and combine them with didactic techniques for a deeper immersion in the topic. Games are classified according to several criteria:
- according to the “resources” of the students involved in it - games can be physical, mental, emotional and psychological, or combined;
- by type of pedagogical process - educational, communicative, cognitive, reproductive;
- by type and method of organizing the process - questioning and testing, competition and competition, theatrical performance and dramatization game, holiday, training;
- according to the level of severity of the rules - with pre-established frameworks, with conditions determined during the game and improvisational;
- on the construction of the process - plot, role, subject, simulation, business.
Games can use sports equipment, objects, computer equipment or virtual space. Most often, strict rules are set for physical and intellectual forms. The free flow of the process is inherent in creative types - musical, theatrical, festive. The teacher determines the specifics and additional conditions of the game, focusing on the characteristics of the students (pupils) and the material being studied.
To properly use games in the educational process, special education is required. His main areas are preschool and school pedagogy, social and pedagogical activities, and teaching in primary grades. You can get such an education at ANPOO "NSPK". You can learn more about distance* programs from the college admissions office.
* Form of study – correspondence. Educational programs are implemented using e-learning and distance learning technologies.
Conditions for the effective use of gaming technology in the classroom
First of all, before developing or using a game in a lesson, it is necessary to decide on the goals and intended results: students must remember facts, come to logical conclusions, and develop a project based on the material studied. The goal will determine the mechanics of the game and the feedback on it. The easiest way is to find a ready-made game to solve certain pedagogical problems.
The situation is more complicated if the game is missing. Creating a game is a rather labor-intensive process and involves a detailed analysis of the target audience (how many people are playing, what age, how motivated they are initially, how they will perceive defeat), elaboration of the mechanics (types of players, the role of the moderator, game duration, use of artifacts, game result, used platform), script writing, artifact development, description of player roles.
It is important for the teacher to understand that his role in the game can only be to moderate game activities, but he cannot become one of the players. Moreover, the game must follow the rules set initially, and if these rules turn out to be imperfect, then they cannot be changed directly during the game. Therefore, before using any game in class, it is advisable to play it yourself.
The purpose of the game in education will not be achieved if an analysis of the game results is not included in the program. It is often useful to discuss with players not only the educational aspect (what facts they remembered thanks to the game or what conclusions they drew regarding the played out plot), but also the mechanics of the game (why player A behaved in a certain way, but this did not lead to the desired result, why player B cheated and still won). Analysis of the mechanics of the game and the motives of the players’ actions can have not only a teaching, but also an educational effect.
