Game-based learning to transform classrooms and the world

Game-based learning favors competency-based learning and becomes a very useful methodology for the application of the LOMLOE, while allowing issues such as global challenges to be addressed and promoting the inclusion of students in the classroom.

The “Monitoring report on education in the world” of UNESCO of 2020 on inclusion and education is forceful: “Our rapidly changing world is constantly facing considerable challenges, from disruptive technological innovations to climate change, gender inequalities, warfare, forced displacement of people and hate speech, among others. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted and further deepened these inequalities, as well as the fragility of our societies and educational systems.” Education has the challenge of not only promoting the skills and abilities necessary to understand the world and transform it, but also to consolidate educational centers as participatory and inclusive spaces, in which all students are at the center of educational processes on an equal footing. of opportunities, thus contributing to the construction of more inclusive and democratic societies.

Internet promotes transformative education through participatory methodologies and resources, such as cooperative games, that promote reflection-action around current global challenges and individual and collective transformation. Just published two cooperative games type “Escape-room” with which to address the eco-social crisis and gender inequalities in the classroom.

A museum and a hypermarket are the settings for the InteRed games “Visibles” and “Footprint”.

• “Visible”, aimed at the stage from 12 to 16 years old, makes visible the contributions of 15 women from different historical periods and cultures in different areas of knowledge, as references that dismantle gender stereotypes.

1. “Footprint”, focused from 16 years onwards, allows to discover the eco-dependence and interdependence of the human being through 12 products of habitual consumption, with the aim of becoming aware of the eco-social challenges of a world in the midst of a climate crisis And social.

In the teacher’s book, Gema Martínez Navarro, “Technologies and new trends in education: learning by playing. The Kahoot case”, points us to numerous authors who talk about the benefits of games in learning: Thus, “It improves problem-solving skills and favors logical and critical thinking” (Higgin); “They help the development of emotional, aptitude and intellectual capacities and develop cognitive abilities” (Kenny and McDaniel); “They improve attention, concentration, complex thinking and strategic planning” (Kirriemuir and McFarlane); “They facilitate the acceptance of ways of thinking different from those of our environment” (López-Peláez); “The playful component and its fun character attract and motivate the students” (McGonigal; Simões, Díaz-Redondo and Fernández-Vilas); “They help in the process of internalizing multidisciplinary knowledge and facilitate basic decision-making” (Mitchell and Savill-Smith); “They help to develop certain social skills: experiment with different identities, explore new experiences and test one’s limits” (Perrota).

The project financed by the Erasmus+ Program of the European Union “Transformative Educational Methods for Social Inclusion and Global Citizenship”coordinated by InteRed, has allowed the elaboration of cooperative board games in collaboration with students and teachers of educational centers of Spain, Italy and Austria. Game-based Learning means committing to active, holistic, collaborative methodologies that put students, with all their diversity, at the center of teaching-learning processes.

These games will be presented and delivered in a free workshop aimed at educational agents (teachers, educators, and technical education personnel from NGOs and public administration) under the title “TRANSFORM THE CLASSROOMS”, which will take place in Madrid on Tuesday 31 January 2023 from 5:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The full program of the event and the registration form can be found by clicking here.

Ines Hernandez Hidalgo. Software. InteRed Education Line