Game On: Using Digital Games to Transform Teaching, Learning, and Assessment, Nov/2016

Discover how to incorporate digital games into lessons in order to improve learning and prepare 21st century students for college and careers.

Discover how digital gaming can improve learning and prepare students for successful futures. The authors—both experienced educators and enthusiastic gamers—contend that students of the 21st century communicate and learn differently than previous generations. By incorporating digital games into lessons, student learning will more accurately reflect the interactive, engaging reality students experience outside the classroom and better prepare them for college and careers.

1. Learn why students of the digital generation require different learning and teaching methods than previous generations.
2. Discover the benefits of playing games for educational and professional development purposes, which include making students active participants in their learning.
3. Gain consistent, clear definitions for terms related to gaming in education.
4. Access lists of suggested digital games and learn for what purposes the games are most useful.
5. Consider how digital games can address students’ diverse learning needs.

About The Authors:

Ryan L. Schaaf is an assistant professor of educational technology at Notre Dame of Maryland University and a faculty associate for the Johns Hopkins University School of Education.

Ryan is also an experienced consultant. He delivers workshops and keynotes on the potential of using gaming in the classroom, the learning characteristics of the digital generations, effective pedagogy with digital learners, and emerging technologies and trends in education.

With more than 18 years in education, he is a former classroom teacher, instructional leader, curriculum designer, and technology integration specialist. In 2007, Ryan was nominated for Howard County and Maryland Teacher of the Year.

Ryan is the author of numerous research articles in the New Horizons for Learning and Canadian Journal of Action Research related to the use of digital games as an effective instructional strategy in the classroom.

He earned a BS with honors in education from Towson University and an MS in educational technology and technology leadership from Johns Hopkins University. He is pursuing a PhD in instructional leadership for changing populations from Notre Dame of Maryland University.

Nicky Mohan is managing director of an international educational consulting firm. She is a former classroom teacher, school and university administrator, instructional designer, business sector manager and trainer, and international speaker. She has delivered hundreds of presentations in more than a dozen countries.

At the University of Waikato, New Zealand, Nicky designed and delivered courses and workshops based on best practices in teaching and learning. In Canada and New Zealand, she led an international team in producing lesson plans that met the required curriculum standards while embedding 21st century fluency skills. She is coauthor of Making School a Game Worth Playing.

Nicky earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of South Africa and another master’s degree in literacy and numeracy from Auckland University of Technology.