Learning in Video Games

In a recent paper by University of Wisconsin academics David Shaffer, Kurt Squire, Richard Halverson, and Jim Gee, the authors argue that learning is most powerful when it is personally meaningful, experiential, social, and epistemological all at the same time. Video games are “powerful contexts for learning because they make it possible to create virtual worlds, and because acting in such worlds makes it possible to develop the situated understandings, effective social practices, powerful identities, shared values, and ways of thinking of important communities of practice.”

The authors highlight commercially available games such as Rise of Nations and Civilization III as games that offer rich, interactive environments in which students can explore counterfactual historical claims. Railroad Tycoon and other games that urban planning are also discussed. Click here to read the full paper. In practice, how comfortable are teachers in using commercially available games for learning? How can teachers be provided with resources and appropriate training to what works in classrooms and what games are useful?