Studying can often be a boring and mundane task for students and when they don’t have the motivation to study, their grades and test scores often suffer.
Game-Based Learning: The Rise Of Educational Games
According to a study by NPD, 91% of U.S. children from the ages of 2 to 17 play video games. As a result, schools are using games more than ever to drive deeper engagement in the classroom with their students. Based on a recent survey by The Joan Ganz Cooney Center, 55% of teachers use games in the classroom at least once a week and 47% of these teachers state that the students who benefit the most are low-performing students and special education students.
A History Lesson
For nearly 40 years, games have enhanced K12 classrooms, starting in the ‘80s and ‘90s with titles such as Oregon Trail, Math Blaster, Carmen Sandiego and Zoombinis. In the early 2000s, schools adopted new technology such as LeapPads and GameBoys to educate and engage students inside and outside of the classroom.
Fast forward another decade and more than 50% of schools in the United States report offering their students 1-to-1 computing. With extensive access to devices in the classroom and games further tailored to their curriculum, teachers have adopted a diverse set of educational games like Minecraft EDU, BrainPOP, and iCivic on a much greater scale.
Article owned and written by Stephen Baer. The full article can be read here.
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