St. Landry Parish teachers are helping students develop missed skills by letting them enter a world they already know well — that of video games.
“Ninety percent of children 6-18 play video games regularly; 50{13aab5633489a05526ae1065595c074aeca3e93df6390063fabaebff206207ec} of parents play video games with kids regularly,” Port Barre Middle School teacher Sandra Castille said. “Game-based learning uses this medium to remediate and enrich our students.”
Castille was one of about six teachers across the district to pilot the Legends of Learning platform in her in an elective remediation class this year. So kids got to be ninjas or superheroes as they worked on math and science skills they might be struggling with to win the game.
Research has long supported learning through play, often referring to hands-on activities for younger students, but game-based content provides similar benefits.
“The biggest impact I saw with my students is risk-taking and pleasant frustration,” Castille said. “Learning has some discomfort to it, because you have to take the risk of being wrong to learn. Students are much more comfortable doing this in video game format.”
Then she was able to make instructional decisions based on data from the game, which told her how her students were performing on certain skills. Tracking student progress in real time allowed her to personalize the gaming experience and in-person lessons that followed.
“The gaming platform gave me immediate data on where my students were. That way I knew beforehand the ‘just right’ level to teach,” Castille said.
Therese Ellender, supervisor of science, technology, engineering, art and math (STEAM) for the district, was looking for a program that would remediate students for math and science skills deficiencies and yet provide a fun academic experience with gaming, she said.
“With COVID I felt it was extremely important that middle school students have a fun way to remediate lost learning and improve deficient skills,” Ellender said.
And it has fit the bill. Ellender has even seen students continue to “play” in the program after the school year ended. The district also is considering expanding the program beyond the pilot classrooms.
“I have many schools asking to add the program next year,” Ellender said.
The district also will be using Legends of Learning during Camp Accelerate, the summer learning program that kicks off June 7.
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Castille recently shared her experience with the program as a presenter at the Louisiana Teacher Leader Summit, an annual professional development conference for educators from across the state.
“I was pretty nervous to start, but adult learners are not that different than my middle-schoolers,” she said. “Know your material, throw in some humor, pass out treats and let them play video games, and all was well.”
Contact children’s issues reporter Leigh Guidry at [email protected] or on Twitter @LeighGGuidry.