Meaningful Support for Teachers: Specific Ways to Encourage Game-Based Learning in the Classroom

The three panelists in this session are in the last one or two years of their game-based learning projects, and all have done extensive work in supporting use of their games in classroom learning. As their work has progressed, each has discovered valuable ways to support teachers as well as encountered surprises in what teachers wanted (and didn’t want), and now recognize things they wished they had learned in the beginning of their projects. Session participants leave with recommendations they can use in their current projects, including:

• specific strategies for identifying teachers’ needs,
• examples of tools for teachers that could be used as a models for other projects, and
• resources and partnerships for future collaboration.

 Rather than presenting on each project in series, speakers work as a panel to address the following issues, leaving room for active discussion from workshop participants:

• the process used to identify needs and develop tools;
• types of materials the presenters have found helpful for:
  • professional development
  • use of games in general
  • use of these projects’ games
  • learning communities (for teachers and learners)
• most significant discoveries in guiding teachers (such as the discomfort many teachers have in letting a game "teach" rather than "provide practice," and the types of support learners need in game play and different ways teachers can provide that support)
• future steps for continuing teacher support in the use of developed games.