The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Discovering how video games can help pupils develop maths skills
How much time children spend playing video games is a divisive topic – however, when Derek Robertson wheeled the TV into his classroom he was amazed to see pupils respond to complex maths problems on their games console.
The boys in his P6 class were in the lowest ability maths group and had struggled with problem solving, but on the last day of term before the Christmas holidays, his eyes were opened to a new way of helping children learn through gaming.
That moment around 20 years ago has shaped his career since as a lecturer and government advisor.
He established Learning and Teaching Scotland’s
Consolarium initiative, which explored how valuable the video game could be in an education setting.
A key project saw pupils take on a 3DS game called Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training, which tasked players to complete maths problems as quickly as they could.
The children made major improvements in their numeracy skills.
He said: “The kids would do the Nintendo DS as a soft start project first thing in the morning and then they would do a brain age check at the end of the week.
“The teachers we worked with spoke about children willingly taking home additional work on times tables because they were intrinsically motivated to get better at the game.”
They created a world of imagination for pupils to immerse themselves in and their teacher could plan lessons away from screens around what they had learned.
Games like Nintendogs and Minecraft became staples in all aspects of education.
Now Minecraft is taking over and allowing teachers to explore creative design challenges that let pupils explore their imagination.
Mr Robertson said: “Games like Minecraft promote a self-regulation of learning. They know how to self-improve. They go to things they like to learn how to do things.”
“Imagine situating learning in world such as Minecraft which then we can bring in, as we did with Nintendogs, a whole host of curricular objectives that are within that culture.
“People see things like Minecraft as youth culture but if we opened our eyes we could see the richness and the potential of what’s happening in these spaces.”
“I find it incredible that we’re not tapping into that domain more than we currently are.”
Encouraging children to play games in the classroom has to be justified, though.
He said: “There are long established norms and expectations of what school and learning is and what people should be doing at school.
“There was always an element of shock at the idea of kids playing Nintendogs in school, you had to justify it regularly.
“People see things like Minecraft as youth culture but if we opened our eyes we could see the richness and the potential of what’s happening in these spaces.”