C3 SoftWorks

In the past few years I have learned and incredible amount of insight to using “Jeopardy” style games both as an education tool and as a promotional tool for a event or trade show. But it is the educational side I want to talk about. I have found that there are many opinions about the use of games as a serious teaching tool. Some are very valid but many are simply based of the wrong ideas or more to the point on how many use or misuse games I should say that perpetuate many of the negative feelings people have about using these types of games as a way to help teach any topic. Here is a list of the common mistakes I see with instructors using games as an educational tool.

1. They play the game like it is a TV show. Okay, but isn’t that the idea? Yes and no, you are using a familiar game concept that will appeal to your class, but remember your objective is to teach, not entertain where as the TV versions is to entertain. Let me put it this way, on TV they may go through 3-4 games with 25 questions each in 20 minutes. When I use a game it typically will take me 45-60 minutes to get through one game of 26 questions. Big difference. Your objective is to deliver the content in a way that all the students can absorb. Not just the person or team with the fastest finger on the buzzer. Slow down the speed of the game. Read the questions and go into more information about the question. The software I use to create my games allows me to add teaching points in a summary and in a preview area prior to a question that allow me to deliver additional teaching points.

2. They judge the success of the game on the student’s reactions. Okay this is huge, and many instructors wrongly think that because students raved about the game for months or for years afterwards they think it was a great educational tool but in end it was just a lot of fun. I have sat through conference speakers that made me pee my pants because they where so funny, but when I inventory what I learned from the talk, I come up empty other than I should learn to use the restroom before the next session. I remember one incident when I first created a game to review a topic, the employees loved it. It was a huge hit, but many in the administration thought it didn’t cover the subject well enough. And it didn’t primarily because of many of things being discussed in this very article.

3. They use the game as fun review. Okay you may be scratching your head on this one. This by far is how must people will use games in training, but you maybe selling the games short. Now I know sometimes this has value and sometimes we do need to fill time, but many people view games a luxury item. If they all of sudden have to cut time, usually the game is cut. Primarily because it was a fun way to fill time and not really based on sound teaching objectives. But my main point here is that the instructor is concentrating on the “fun” not the educational aspect of the game. This leads us to the next point.

4. Have a clear, concise teaching objective. If it is used for teaching, you should have an objective for what you want to accomplish. Go beyond the question and answer. Many instructors think since the question is based off of subject matter that is all the need to make it educational, Tell your audience why it is right or wrong. Provide more information then just the question and answers. Just because a team gets it right doesn’t mean everybody else gets it. Use the questions as a way to promote discussion or as spring board for you to go into more detail. I sometime will spend minutes going into more information about the question so everyone understands why the answer is correct or incorrect. Remember the question is really a reminder of what you want to cover.

5. Don’t call it a game! Okay, but you think, “well it is a game!” Well it’s all in how you say it. I learned this years ago when I was telling a potential client how much fun his employees where going to have if he chose us for his training vendor. Wrong answer! His response to that was; “They are not here to have fun!” Thankfully I am quick on my feet and responded back with this; “What I mean is, we have found ways to make our training more engaging so the students, will get much more from the class which will benefit you and your company. Simply put we feel that the participants enjoy the training process they will be able to absorb more information. Now who can argue with that? What I do now when I talk about games I emphasize my teaching objective, not having fun. It just so happens that fun will help me achieve my primary goal, but truthfully it is not my primary objective. If you are selling the idea of using a game as a tool to your boss, call it a learning exercise or an engagement tool or something else. The word game too many still implies a luxury, something fun, but not educational. This is changing but we still have a ways to go.

I hope you found these 5 tips to avoid helpful. But the interesting thing is if I wanted to use a game for purely entertainment purposes like at a trade show or public event I would actually do some of things that I just told you to avoid. It just depends on what your objective is you are trying to achieve.

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