Game-based learning technologies: application in pedagogy and types

Games are a great way to organize a group of people for joint activities, encourage a person to take certain actions, increase motivation and look at routine work from a new perspective. The famous example of Tom Sawyer, described by Mark Twain, shows that you can captivate others even with such a boring task as painting a fence - if you approach the matter with imagination.

Game technologies in pedagogy “work” in a similar way. They help present the educational process as an entertaining, interesting activity, preserving all its benefits. This is an integral part of preschool, school and even vocational education.

Game-based learning technologies are ways, methods and techniques by which a teacher (teacher):

sets situations in which students must find themselves in order to gain knowledge or practical useful experience;
creates circumstances that encourage students to make independent decisions - in order to later draw conclusions and work through mistakes;
offers a choice - different social roles and “masks”, options for solving problems that allow you to get to know yourself better, control your behavior, and cope more effectively with a difficult matter;
creates an environment for increasing motivation by activating the imagination, the “spirit of competition,” excitement, and group activities.

Functionality of the teaching method

Play is the most important aspect of children's interactive learning. It allows the child’s personality to develop more freely, revealing individuality and realizing natural abilities and inclinations. While playing, children of preschool and school age remember more information, absorb it better, and learn to work with their rational thinking and emotions. Therefore, gaming technologies in pedagogy have many functions that can even be called missions. This:

Motivation and self-realization. The child should not be forced to play. He will willingly complete the task himself and treat it responsibly. With the help of gaming technologies, you can awaken children's interest in a useful process, entertain them and inspire them to new achievements.
Socialization. Game-based pedagogical technologies place children in conditions where they must interact with other participants. A safe and interesting environment helps to overcome pressures and embarrassment, learn to understand others, make it easier to make contact and not be afraid of it.
Communication, including interethnic and intercultural. When playing, it is easier for children to understand people with views and principles. different from their own. This helps to assimilate the general sociocultural values of civilization.
Therapy and correction. Using gaming technologies, you can resolve a difficult situation by projecting it onto an emotionally comfortable and understandable situation. Psychological and behavioral correction occurs naturally, helping students overcome antisocial behavior and emotional trauma.
Diagnostics. Game techniques make it easier for the teacher to determine the child’s inclinations and personality characteristics. This helps to select effective educational methods. Children reveal themselves to the maximum during play and do not hide their true emotions, which increases the accuracy of psychological and pedagogical diagnostics.

Using gaming technology in action

A game is useful if it is as close as possible to real life situations. Therefore, it needs to be integrated into the educational process. Gaming technologies are used independently and as an element of a more general, traditional teaching methodology. They help children more easily master the topics of academic disciplines, and it is easier for a teacher or extracurricular teacher to control and guide the process.

However, you need to be able to use the game method in order for it to have an effect. When using such technologies in action, it is necessary:

draw up plans, goals in advance and carefully develop the components of the game - images, conditions, processes, plot, communication between participants;
set a didactic goal for the participants, but reproduce the rules only in a playful form;
use educational material as a means of play;
connect the result of the game with the completion of a learning task - for example, you can win by solving an exercise well or memorizing a poem;
build a lesson according to the rules of the game - the work and behavior of students should depend on them;
introduce a competitive element into the educational process - it helps to transform a didactic task into a game one.

When using gaming technologies, it is important to decide whether they are relevant for a specific topic or subject of study and to monitor the balance of the entertainment component and the actual study.

Game as a pedagogical technology

Introduction

Today the focus is on the student, his personality, and his unique inner world. Therefore, the main task of a modern teacher is to choose forms and methods of organizing students’ educational activities that correspond to the goal—the development of the student’s personality. The oldest means of raising and teaching children is play. Games complement traditional forms of learning and help enhance the learning process. In this regard, play forms of teaching and raising children acquire special importance.

A game is a specially organized activity that requires intense emotional and mental strength. The game always involves making a decision, and the desire to win sharpens the mental activity of the players. Children, however, do not think about this; for them, play is, first of all, an exciting activity.

Game technology compares favorably with other teaching methods in that it allows the student to be personally involved in the functioning of the phenomenon being studied and gives the opportunity to live for some time in “real” life conditions.

Before including gaming technology in the educational process, it is necessary to determine: what educational material is appropriate to study using gaming technology; for what type of students should it be used; how to link play with other ways of learning; how to find time in the curriculum to conduct it; what gaming technology should be chosen for a specific educational topic; how to choose a game that solves specific educational problems at each stage of the lesson.

Gaming technologies as a type of pedagogical technology

Currently, the concept of pedagogical technology has firmly entered the pedagogical lexicon. First of all, let's find out what technology is in general:

In the explanatory dictionary, technology is defined as a set of

techniques used in any business, skill, art;

According to Shepel V.M. technology is an art, skill, skill,

a set of processing methods, state changes.

While:

Likhachev speaks of pedagogical technology as a set of psychological and pedagogical attitudes that determine a special set and arrangement of forms, methods, methods, teaching techniques, educational means; that it is an organizational and methodological toolkit for the pedagogical process.
Pedagogical technology according to Bespalko V.P. is a meaningful technique for implementing the educational process.
Volkov I.P. sees pedagogical technology as a description of the process of achieving planned learning outcomes.
Academician, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Education V.M. Monakhov. understands by pedagogical technology a model of joint pedagogical activity thought out in all details for the design, organization and conduct of the educational process with the unconditional provision of comfortable conditions for students and teachers.

Analysis of the above definitions shows that many researchers interpret the essence of the concept of educational technology identically. The difference between them is only in how broadly this concept is revealed.

Having defined the concept of pedagogical technology, I would like to know its structure.

The structure of pedagogical technology includes:

organization of the educational process;
methods and forms of educational activities of students;
the teacher’s activities in managing the process of mastering the material;
diagnostics of the educational process.

Like any technology, educational technology is a process in which a qualitative change in the impact on the student occurs.

An essential component of pedagogical technologies are teaching methods - ways of orderly interconnected activities of the teacher and students.

In the history of didactics, various classifications of teaching methods have developed, such as

verbal;
visual:
practical:

The game turns into a teaching method under the following conditions:

— filling the technology with certain content;

- giving the content a didactic meaning;

— presence of motivation of trainees;

— establishing didactic connections with other teaching methods.

According to the classification of G.K.Selevko, pedagogical technologies according to the predominant (dominant) method differ in:

Gaming.
Dogmatic, reproductive.
Explanatory and illustrative.
Developmental training.
Problematic, search.
Programmed training.
Dialogical.
Creative.
Self-development training.
Information (computer)

Based on the definitions and classifications given above, we can conclude that gaming technologies are an integral part of pedagogical technologies. Thus, pedagogical technology, in which the dominant teaching method is play, is game technology.

Game structure

From the previous paragraph it became clear that the concept of “game pedagogical technologies” includes a fairly extensive group of methods and techniques for organizing the pedagogical process in the form of various pedagogical games. Let's find out how famous teachers, psychologists, and writers of various years define the game.

A.M. Gorky wrote that play is the way for children to understand the world in which they live and which they are called upon to change. In the psychological concept, play is defined as an activity, the subject and motive of which lie in the very process of its implementation.

According to D.B. Elkonin, human play is an activity in which social relationships between people are recreated outside the conditions of directly utilitarian activity.

Unlike games in general, a pedagogical game has an essential feature - a clearly defined learning goal and a corresponding pedagogical result, which can be justified, identified explicitly and characterized by an educational-cognitive orientation.

There are many approaches to defining a game.

Game organization structure. The game is a bright and emotional holiday. In organizing the game, everything should be thought out to the smallest detail.

Game selection. The teacher must choose a game that matches the program content and clearly imagine what results he wants to get. The design of the plan, game actions, the content and formulation of the rules, and the course of the game often depend on this.

The choice of gaming technologies in the practice of teaching staff is dictated by the principle of child activity in the learning process, which is characterized by a high level of motivation, a conscious need to acquire knowledge and skills, effectiveness and compliance with social norms, because Play, along with work and study, is one of the main types of human activity. The game is used as:

independent technologies for mastering a concept, topic, and even a section of an academic subject;
as an element of a broader technology;
as a lesson (lesson) or part of it (introduction, explanation, reinforcement, exercise, control);
as technologies for extracurricular activities.

Various types of games are used at almost all levels of education.

However, in order to use gaming technologies in the classroom, the teacher needs to know and be able to select a pedagogical game. Currently, interest in the game is growing rapidly, which naturally leads to an increase in the number of games, as well as their variety. It becomes more difficult to navigate them. Therefore, the relevance of the issue of game classification is increasing every day.

Games, as an element of the training system, exist in certain conditions that influence them and they, in turn, actively influence the conditions in which they operate; they also actively interact with traditional methods of conducting classes. At the same time, the system develops and its boundaries expand.

Preparing the game.

Preliminary preparation of students for the game.

The teacher's task is to ensure that all children understand what they must do during the preparatory work. Preliminary preparation often bears the main didactic load. This mainly applies to role-playing games. But the teacher needs to trust the children more, there is no need to completely organize the preparation, let them show independence themselves.

Preparation immediately before the game.

This stage should be aimed at creating an emotional gaming mood.

III. Introduction to the game.

Offering games to children.

Usually, it is enough for the organizer of the game to say: “Now let’s play: “Name of the game” or “And so that you remember this material better, we will play a game” or “In connection with this there is such a game:.” It's enough.

Explanation of the rules of the game.

It is necessary to formulate them briefly and specifically.

Selection of game participants.

Progress of the game.

Beginning of the game.

It is very important for the game to gain momentum. Games with rules usually require good pacing. And this is “in the hands” of the organizer: to prompt someone, to urge someone on with exclamations of “Let’s speed up the pace!”, “Long pause!”:

Development of game action (culmination).

At this stage, the excitement of the players is maximally manifested, and at the same time the interest of both participants and spectators increases. It is important for the organizer to monitor compliance with the rules and sometimes to encourage the player.

The final stage of the game.

The teacher needs to feel when the tension subsides, and should not expect the students to get bored with the game itself. In order to stop the game in time, you need to tell in advance that its end is approaching. Thus, students have time to psychologically prepare for the end of the game.

When organizing and conducting gaming technology, it is necessary to strive for maximum concentration in time, since with significant breaks, students lose the thread of the game, their emotional mood, and forget the rules

To avoid these problems, you must:

1) before starting preparations for the game, clearly announce the criterion by which the results will be assessed;

2) be sure to carefully note the positive aspects of the teams (participants) that did not take prizes;

3) note what interfered with the game, if any. And, of course, it should be extremely clear to everyone that the teams that received prizes were indeed stronger.

VI. Analysis of the game (discussion, questioning, assessment of emotional state).

The most important role in gaming technologies belongs to the final retrospective discussion, in which students jointly analyze the course and results of the game, the relationship between the game (simulation) model and reality, as well as the course of educational and game interaction.

Despite the fact that the teacher himself feels the mood of the class, it still cannot represent a complete picture, since this is a collective mood. It is important for the teacher to understand each child in order to draw conclusions for the subsequent game, taking into account the individual characteristics of each. And therefore, it is important, despite the fact that there is always a catastrophic lack of time, to analyze the game - it is the key to the effectiveness of gaming activities and the development of the teacher’s methodological skills.

Conclusion

Interest in any discipline largely depends on how the lessons are taught. Even in the best lessons, the element of obligation hinders the development of passion for the subject. Therefore, in lessons it is necessary to use non-traditional educational technologies as widely as possible.

The study of literature, analysis and generalization of materials collected on the problem made it possible to determine the theoretical basis for the use of pedagogical games of various types.

Summarizing the results of the work, we can draw the following conclusions:

1.Game technologies are one of the types of pedagogical technologies, the teaching method in which is the game. People have used games as a method of learning and transferring the experience of older generations to younger ones since ancient times. The game is widely used in folk pedagogy, in preschool and out-of-school institutions. There are many classifications of games. Games are a valuable means of cultivating children’s mental activity and activating mental processes, but only if conducted by a competent organizer.

2. In a modern school, which relies on the activation and intensification of the educational process, game activities are used as elements of a lesson or part of it (introduction, explanation, reinforcement, exercise, control). It is most appropriate to use it in lessons to consolidate, systematize or repeat material.

3. The game form of classes is created with the help of game techniques and situations that make it possible to intensify the cognitive activity of students. When planning a game, the didactic goal turns into a game task, the educational activity is subject to the rules of the game, the educational material is used as a means for the game, an element of competition is introduced into the educational activity, which transforms the didactic task into a game task, and the successful completion of the didactic task is associated with the game result.

Literature:

Bespalko V.P. Components of pedagogical technology. - M., Pedagogy, 1989.
Volkov I.P. Pedagogical technologies. - M., Education, 1990.
Kryukova E. A. Personal development educational technologies: nature, design, implementation. – Volgograd, Peremena, 1999.
Pedagogical technologies / Ed. Kukushkina V.S. - Rostov n/d., March, 2002.
Shaikhetdinova L.R. Game technologies as a factor in students’ cognitive activity [Electronic resource]/-L.R. Shaikhetdinova // Publishing House “First of September” / festival of pedagogical ideas “Open Lesson”.

Borisova Yulia Alexandrovna

Types of pedagogical games

Each gaming technology consists of individual techniques - that is, games. There are many types of them, which allows you to flexibly choose teaching tools and combine them with didactic techniques for a deeper immersion in the topic. Games are classified according to several criteria:

according to the “resources” of the students involved in it - games can be physical, mental, emotional and psychological, or combined;
by type of pedagogical process - educational, communicative, cognitive, reproductive;
by type and method of organizing the process - questioning and testing, competition and competition, theatrical performance and dramatization game, holiday, training;
according to the level of severity of the rules - with pre-established frameworks, with conditions determined during the game and improvisational;
on the construction of the process - plot, role, subject, simulation, business.

Games can use sports equipment, objects, computer equipment or virtual space. Most often, strict rules are set for physical and intellectual forms. The free flow of the process is inherent in creative types - musical, theatrical, festive. The teacher determines the specifics and additional conditions of the game, focusing on the characteristics of the students (pupils) and the material being studied.

To properly use games in the educational process, special education is required. His main areas are preschool and school pedagogy, social and pedagogical activities, and teaching in primary grades. You can get such an education at ANPOO "NSPK". You can learn more about distance* programs from the college admissions office.

* Form of study – correspondence. Educational programs are implemented using e-learning and distance learning technologies.

Conditions for the effective use of gaming technology in the classroom

First of all, before developing or using a game in a lesson, it is necessary to decide on the goals and intended results: students must remember facts, come to logical conclusions, and develop a project based on the material studied. The goal will determine the mechanics of the game and the feedback on it. The easiest way is to find a ready-made game to solve certain pedagogical problems.

The situation is more complicated if the game is missing. Creating a game is a rather labor-intensive process and involves a detailed analysis of the target audience (how many people are playing, what age, how motivated they are initially, how they will perceive defeat), elaboration of the mechanics (types of players, the role of the moderator, game duration, use of artifacts, game result, used platform), script writing, artifact development, description of player roles.

It is important for the teacher to understand that his role in the game can only be to moderate game activities, but he cannot become one of the players. Moreover, the game must follow the rules set initially, and if these rules turn out to be imperfect, then they cannot be changed directly during the game. Therefore, before using any game in class, it is advisable to play it yourself.

The purpose of the game in education will not be achieved if an analysis of the game results is not included in the program. It is often useful to discuss with players not only the educational aspect (what facts they remembered thanks to the game or what conclusions they drew regarding the played out plot), but also the mechanics of the game (why player A behaved in a certain way, but this did not lead to the desired result, why player B cheated and still won). Analysis of the mechanics of the game and the motives of the players’ actions can have not only a teaching, but also an educational effect.