A few months ago, my Millennial son changed my life: he gave me an Xbox. Some would say the change is for the better, while others might say it’s for the worse. Millennials, Gen Zers, and Gen Alphas, those young digital natives who’ve been racing and blasting their way through the gaming cyber-verse for most of their lives, would welcome me into their gaming fraternity, while Gen Xers and my fellow Baby Boomers who grew up with me in an analog world would say, “Huh? Now you spend all those hours playing a bunch of video games?”
I think it’s changed my life for the better. My favorite game is Star Wars: Battlefront, a record setting game that first hit the market seven years ago. But being behind the times, I’ve just now discovered it. Battlefront, and the sequel of other Star Wars games that followed it, are still hugely popular. When I go online to play with other gamers from around the world, I find a lot of people playing alongside me as we battle Imperial storm troopers and do our collective best to thwart Darth Vader’s malevolent plans.
As I was playing Battlefront this morning and getting my daily dose of digital heroism, I thought: “What makes this game is so much fun?” Besides having the pleasure of saving the galaxy on a daily basis, I looked at the way the game was designed — and I realized it had the same elements we should be working into our lessons as we teach Gen Z and Gen Alpha.
· The game has an opening hook to grab your attention. As the game begins, you hear dramatic music, see the characters, and know immediately you’re in a battle of good vs. evil. While teachers don’t have a John Williams soundtrack, they should open their lessons with questions, an image, or a video to grab their students’ attention.
· The content is relevant. Who doesn’t want to fight alongside Hans Solo and Luke Skywalker? When students see relevance in their content, they are more engaged and the learning is deeper.
· You are challenged to think in the upper levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. If you don’t analyze, evaluate, and create new ways of surviving in the game, you lose quickly. Students also want to be challenged in their classes to think critically. Low rigor bores them.
· The game becomes increasingly more complex with each level of difficulty. Besides having to think critically at each level, you must constantly learn new methods to stay ahead. A good lesson is often scaffolded. When the lesson is layered effectively, the content makes more sense to the students.
· The colors are beautiful. You feel you’re actually seeing that planet in that galaxy far, far away. Students today are growing up online with vivid imagery. If they’re going to read black and white font in textbooks, they need to see bright images on their Chromebooks and on the large screen in front of the room.
· Today’s Xbox and PlayStation consoles are light years (please pardon the pun, but I couldn’t resist…) ahead in the video quality of earlier consoles. The sound, special effects, and visuals make you feel you are part of an action movie. Students today spend much of their free time in games like this one, and perhaps they’ve moved into virtual reality games, which are even more interactive. When students aren’t gaming they’re often watching YouTube and TikTok videos. How do we compete with these fast paced images? Partly through the use of videos in the classroom. Students need to see videos at key points of the lesson to be engaged.
· In video games, you often reach checkpoints as you journey through the different stages. You can then start from these checkpoints if you get defeated or if you exit the game and come back to play later. It saves you from having to start over with parts of the game you’ve already mastered. Think of it as a type of benchmarking. A great lesson provides students with opportunities to check their learning through formative assessment and benchmarking so they can focus on what’s ahead of them and don’t spend their time covering material they’ve already learned.
· As you run through the scenes in Battlefront, you pick up tokens that allow you to unlock secrets and gain points. It’s a system of immediate rewards, a quick “Good job!” from the game designers. They realize today’s players want instant gratification. It’s the same with our Gen Z and Gen Alpa students who need constant praise and positive reinforcement throughout the lesson.
· You can choose to play alone or go online and play with others. Sometimes I play in a 40-person game with players from around the world. In classrooms, Gen Z and Gen Alpha students are independent socializers, which means they like to be both unique (and sometimes work alone) and social, which means they also like to interact (and sometimes work with others). Some lessons can provide choices, but there should be lessons where students are encouraged to work in pairs and groups so they can have academically rich conversations and learn to work cooperatively.
· To be successful in any video you have to hone your skills. When you play, you learn what works— and what doesn’t work. It’s the same idea in a lesson when students are allowed to explore ways to solve math problems and edit paragraphs. They are honing their skills as they analyze, evaluate, and create.
· One essential part of a successful video game is the pacing. A game that spends too much time in one scene is boring, which causes the players move on to another game. The pacing in a lesson has to be right. Our students don’t have the option of doing another activity if the lesson drags, but that doesn’t mean they’re listening to us. They begin to tune out and think of other things.
· When a game or scene in a game is successfully played to its end, the game’s characters celebrate with triumphant shouts. In an effective lesson, the teacher and students celebrate progress and mastery. It’s not just an elementary school concept; it needs to happen in secondary classrooms, too.
Here’s a final point I emphasize with all educators today: we need to do some of the things our students do to understand them and to help make our content relevant for them. If you’re not into gaming, you might consider finding an Xbox or Playstation and logging on. Perhaps I’ll see you soon on the planet Tatooine in Battlefront, and together we can fight Imperial storm troopers — and get some ideas for lesson design as we save the galaxy.