Let’s Twist Again, The role of educational play in schools

Abstract

The National Curriculum Guide (Mennta- og menningarmálaráðuneyti [Ministry of education and culture], 2013) highlights creativity as one of the main pillars of education, emphasizing that “Creativity is based on curiosity, challenge, excitement and search. Grappling with the problem and finding a solution can, in itself, be the reward of creation”. Learning through play and educational games can be an important learning method, opening new dimensions where the joy of creation for children and youth can come into its own. The aim of this article is to shed light on the complexity of play and educational games through the theoretical background of what Friedrich Fröbel, John Dewey, Jean William Fritz Piaget and Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky say about play and how theories proposed by Robert M. Gagné and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi relate to educational games with a main focus on educational games. Gagné’s conditions of learning theory, is imported for educational games, are divided into five categories, all of which fall under the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains as discussed previously. The five learning outcomes: intellectual skills, cognitive strategies, verbal information, motor skills, and attitudes can be learned through games. Csikszentmihalyi’s flow theory has nine elements that can also be learned through educational play. The nine elements are; challenge-skill balance, action-awareness merging, clear goals, unambiguous feedback, concentration on the task at hand, sense of control, loss of self-consciousness, transformation of time, and an autotelic experience. The research question for this article is: Can education happen through educational games? The difference between educational play and free play is that in educational play there are expectations of performance, but in free games, the child itself controls the creative process and outcome. The National Curriculum Guide stated that: “To children play is a spontaneous means of learning and developing. In compulsory school it is important to retain this method in school activities and develop it as the pupils grow older”. The National Curriculum guide also stated that play is as fruitful a means of development and understanding for a 15-year-old pupil as it is for a six-year-old child. Play is a children’s way to learn both about themselves and the world they live in. Through role-plays, the pupils can speak and respond as conjured up from their own imaginations and experience. And through educational games they learn to discover new methods of working towards achieving goals and objectives in an interactive manner. The article tells us about games and about educational games and teachers’ role in relation to games and creative teaching. The article also provides a website with an idea bank, instructions that can be used by teachers and explanations of how to make the game from scratch and how to use it (instruction manual). Let’s Twist Again is an educational game that links play and learning, is suitable for refreshing study material and increasing student knowledge. The game can be used in all subjects and suits all age groups. It could also be useful in special education and for students of foreign origin. The aim of the game, Let´s Twist Again, is to promote communication and collaboration between students and make sure that students are given the opportunity to move around in lessons. The aim is also to increase students’ skills in the relevant subject and to have them to participate in their own learning. The website provides further information about the game, the game rules, instructions for teachers and an idea bank. The website also illustrates the development of the game and how it was developed with and for young children in preschool and in math and language teaching in compulsory education in Iceland.