The educational values of board games

Although digital technology has come to dominate the entertainment world, the board game has never been more popular. It forces people to gather around a table or on the floor to play. Not to mention the fact that they can be highly instructive.

Some games are literally quizzes, while others require you to know how to calculate, be strategic, make alliances and so on. And for those who think these games are just for kids, even the US intelligence agency (CIA) uses them to train its agents to sharpen their thinking skills and make quick decisions. So, it seems, everyone plays games, even at school!

Training by playing

While video games took a long time to make their way into the classroom, board games have often been present in one way or another. Nevertheless, with playful approaches more in vogue today than 10 years ago, schools are looking for fun and educational solutions. So, of course, there are the abundant lists on the Web of popular board games seen as learning tools. A game of Monopoly, Mille Bornes or Jour de Paye covers more or less complex arithmetic questions, card reading, instructions and so on. Some online inventories are even classified according to the skills practised.

Some of these board games are literally designed for learning school subjects. For example, Fun Academy Junior is a card game for teaching English. First, players pick a mission in which they need a specific number of colored cards. To achieve this, they must translate at least 3 words on a card from French to English. The words are inspired by children's everyday lives. There are also dice to practice multiplication and arithmetic operations. The game consists in throwing the dice and finding the answer, or using them to reach an exact number with calculations.

By definition, board games have a social dimension. For toddlers, collaborative board game experiences give them the opportunity to bond, communicate and set up a story with their peers. These are the first social experiences that will teach them to develop interpersonal relationships.

The game can also be used to address social issues with younger children. For example, these designers have created a game that tackles the delicate issue of menstruation for teenage girls. A pivotal period in female puberty often shrouded in malaise can take on a "fun" aspect with gaming.

For its part, the Mae insurance company has designed a gooseboard game on the subject of bullying, an issue of violence that has a major impact on children. The game explains the different facets of this reality experienced by thousands of young people.

Create your own game

What if you need a game that's really specific to your class, or a particular course, and there's nothing out there that fits the bill? The ideal solution is to do what you do with serious games: create your own. Especially since, unlike video games, they don't require mastery of computer tools or programming.

It may seem difficult, however, as there are many stages from the basic idea and the establishment of rules to the prototype and, finally, the finished product. Nevertheless, to get an idea of where to start and where to go, especially when it comes to rules, you need only look at these 8 game principles found in most of today's board games.

Some have already done this with their learners, and rather enjoyed the experience. In this class, the game provided an opportunity to have fun while rethinking the school. All contributed their talents to designing the game, in which players must attract as many students as possible to their school in order to win.

This science teacher came up with an original idea for supervised homework. Learners had to design a game dealing with topics related to the subject they were studying. For example, to understand and explain the transmission of Ebola, students developed a game based on the collaborative board game Pandemic. The students found the task grueling and required a great deal of organization. Nevertheless, they greatly enjoyed the challenge of thinking about propagation modeling and, above all, succeeding in creating an interesting finished product.

Board games are a form of entertainment with pedagogical virtues that were already known decades ago. Nevertheless, as teachers and schools try to infuse playfulness into their curricula, it seems that they can play an increasingly important role in the education of young and old alike.

Illustration: Si-MOCs GARC the game. via photopin (license)

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