Challenges and Opportunities: Developing Game-Based Learning-Focused Professional Development for Secondary Teachers

• In Event: 58.023 - Bridging the Divide Between Knowledge and Action to Advance Game-Based Learning

Abstract

Digital-Game Based Learning is at a critical junction. In spite of initial resistance (Van Eck, 2005), researchers and theorists have succeeded in evangelizing to the masses the pedagogical benefits of digital game-based learning (DGBL). This effort has been so successful that digital games have found widespread acceptance as a tool for learning (Van Eck, 2015). In this way, the evidence supporting the use of digital games as a learning tool has led to a steady increase in the number of educational games being released to the market, along with an increase in the daily usage of games in formal learning environments (Clark, Tanner-Smith, & Killingsworth, 2014). What has not accompanied the increased availability of educational games is the necessary rise in professional development opportunities centered on the proper and prescriptive integration of games into the classroom (Becker, 2007; Denham, 2016).

A survey administered to 694 elementary and middle school teachers highlights the lack and need for DGBL professional development opportunities (Takeuchi & Vaala, 2014). This survey sought to determine if teachers were using digital games, how they used games, and what were the greatest challenges they faced using digital games. Of the teachers surveyed, 74% indicated they used games on a regular basis. Of the game using teachers, 55% were self-taught, 17% received their introduction to DGBL through professional development, and 68% use informal conversations with other teachers who they know use digital games as their primary means of ongoing professional development. Game using teachers pointed to difficulties with finding games that mapped directly to learning standards and objectives, insufficient instructional time, lack of resources, and the inability to find quality games as major barriers to using digital games. For teachers who did not use games in the classroom, their hesitance was a direct result of not being confident in properly integrating games into their practice. This should come as no surprise as “teachers cannot be expected to embrace digital games as a tool for learning unless they have a sound understanding of the potential, as well as the limitations, and are confident in their ability to use games effectively to enhance learning” (Becker, 2007, p. 478).

Impactful professional development offerings are sustained, active, coherent, content specific, and require collective participation but this is difficult to accomplish (Hawley & Valli, 1999; Kennedy, 1998; Wilson & Berne, 1999; Garet et al., 2001; Penuel et al., 2007; Desimone, 2009). This presentation will discuss an ongoing effort designed to help in-service teachers navigate barriers to DGBL implementation through the adherence to the best practices of impactful professional development. Specifically we will present the findings of an on-going DGBL professional learning group, which will include a description of the iterative refinement of the professional development curriculum, and insights gained from analysis of in-class implementations, focus groups and individual teacher interviews.

Author

• Andre R. Denham, The University of Alabama