Written by MITA Digital Outreach
A Chinese proverb goes: "Tell me and I'll forget. Show me and I may remember. Involve me and I'll understand." This is the concept behind 'Game-Based Learning' (GBL) where students are more engaged and motivated to learn through good and effective GBL applications.
When compared with the traditional training approach in the classroom during which sometimes students find that the lesson is boring, tedious or uninspiring, a game-based learning environment provides the student with the opportunity to engage in interactive experiences that effectively sparks off the learning process in a fun and enjoyable manner.
This happens when students learn how to think and react to situations that are similar to real-life circumstances. A well designed game can draw students into a virtual environment that looks familiar and encourage them to use their problem solving skills.
Students work towards an objective, during which they are given particular actions. In the meantime, they are experiencing the effects of the choices they made as they went along during the game; for example, learning through mistakes without running this risk in a real-life circumstance. Therefore, they have the opportunity to learn to practice thought-processing and behaviours in a virtual environment and then transfer this learning to real life.
In a passive, traditional approach this is difficult to achieve where more emphasis is placed on memory skills and where students cannot experience life-like situations that can be offered during a GBL environment. Moreover, students are exposed to problem solving through logical thinking, important skills which are necessary to react under pressure in different circumstances during the game.
As they progress and learn while playing a game the students are actually having fun whether the game is entertaining or whether considered 'serious'. 'Serious' gaming is designed to go beyond pure entertainment and includes a strong aspect of pedagogy.
Last weekend MITA set a challenge for 32 students to work over 45 hours non-stop and design and programme 9 educational games. The 'Game Jam' was organised in collaboration with the Faculty of ICT at the University of Malta, MCAST, St Martin's Institute, the Google Developers Group and the University of Donau in Krems, Austria. Each team had to develop a game designed to be used by teachers to teach STEM subjects in schools at Sec level.
Although this was a competition between teams, all the students experienced the challenge of working under pressure, of applying their diverse skills to input into the game, to collaborate as a team, and to be mentored by some of the best experts in this field.
The winning team holds the game 'Logiquest' designed by Natalia Mallia, Raoul Fenech and Ryan Hamilton. They will be going to Donau University in Austria to attend lectures on game development. An award of Potential was given to two other teams. The team with their game 'Accellogates' developed by Alexander Amato, Matthew Buhagiar and Samuel Sciberras and the game 'The Logic Escape' developed by Ryan Falzon, Kristi Muscat, Nicky Buttigieg and Gilbert Curmi were selected. These teams will have the opportunity to develop the game further at the MITA Innovation Hub were financial as well as technical support will be given to the team members to ensure a successful delivery of the games.