How to Use Digital Games as a Teaching Strategy

Adults and children alike have access to digital games on gaming consoles, computers, laptops, tablets, and phones, and while both typically use them to pass the time, there is no denying just how engaging they can be.

Hiding behind the screen’s graphics and engaging imagery, digital games of all types can be used to promote critical thinking and reasoning.

This provides a significant advantage to using digital games as a teaching strategy. Here is why.

The Advantages of Using Digital Games Inside a Learning Environment

Digital games require players to solve complex problems, work collaboratively, and communicate with others within the online gaming platform and in their physical gaming space.

When played in a group setting, players can collaborate by teaching each other tips and tricks as they learn and understand the unique rules and features of a game.

Digital games allow students to play the game as it is intended to be played, which includes the benefits of researching the game’s mechanics through reading comprehension and imagery. In turn, the experience is structured to demonstrate learning goals by adding critical thinking and problem-solving skills to their research.

This allows students to embrace problems as more than challenges to overcome, but to develop the resources necessary to surmount the obstacles.

Digital Games Promote the Development of Problem-Solving Strategies at Home and in the Classroom

Since digital games are user-centered, they can promote challenges, cooperation, engagement, and the development of problem-solving strategies.

For instance, in adventure games, the player must solve multiple tests that typically grow in difficulty as they progress through the virtual world.

In strategy games, players can recreate fictional scenarios to devise an appropriate strategy to achieve a goal.

In both cases, digital games become useful instruments for learning specific strategies and acquiring knowledge.

Researchers are now investigating the types of learning that derive from the use of digital games and their possible applications in other areas of study.

As the studies continue, digital games have the potential to infuse both living rooms and classrooms with fun while students demonstrate learning goals with energy and interest.