Teachers' Contemplation Towards Selecting and Evaluating Games for Classroom

Teachers' Contemplation Towards Selecting and Evaluating Games for Classroom

Teachers' Contemplation Towards Selecting and Evaluating Games for Classroom

By Mifrah Ahmad

Abstract

“Primary school teachers are equipped with versatile skills to learn, teach, and select learning tools while considering curriculum - only to ensure an engaging experience for learners. Articulating teachers' perspectives and the thought-process of how they select and evaluate a 'game' that has the 'potential' of delivering learning in their classroom requires attention. Teachers' experience of exploring, learning, planning, and training themselves advocates a connection to various personal and past experiences. Hence, understanding their students, gaining continuous experience, and comprehending their 'explorative skills' may allow further insights towards games as learning tools from their perspectives. Therefore, this paper investigates the influencing factors and approaches of primary school teachers in Australia on their decision-making process of evaluating and selecting games for their classrooms. With the concepts and principles adopted from the theory of experience, the need to include andragogical principles is also considered as participants are adults. With the phenomenological approach, the interpretivism paradigm is adopted to allow the acceptance of subjective views. Data is collected through semi-structured interviews with eleven teachers, and it is transcribed and coded through NVivo. Thematic analysis is adopted to ensure the depth of meaning of individuals' experience and how their experience influences their thought-process of selecting, evaluating, and engaging students using educational games. The paper concludes with a broader discussion regarding the influence of experience in teachers' education and learning, and how it influences game selection, evaluation and how they have not been involved in designing an educational game process. The author also proposes a "thought-process" from analysis to demonstrate two emerging approaches alongside tools and resources useful for other teachers in primary schools. Lastly, it is highly crucial to stress the differences between teachers playing a game and teachers evaluating the game for optimizing the classroom environment and learning for their students.”

Reference

Ahmad, M. (2021, September). Teachers' Contemplation Towards Selecting and Evaluating Games for Classroom. Retrieved March 08, 2022, from https://www.proquest.com/docview/2616228804?fromopenview=true&pq-origsite=gscholar

Keyword

Teachers' experience, games, educational games, designing educational games, learning tools/games, evaluating games, research