Five ways that you can use video games to help you engage boys in the classroom

1. Clear Mission Objectives
2. Learn as you play 
3. Incremental Success
4. Provide regular feedback
5. Set a High Ultimate Goal

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Now I will say that these strategies do work for girls as well but with video games, you’re probably aware that the biggest demographic that plays video games is boys. So there are some strategies that game designers understand about the way that gamers think and the way that they engage that I believe will apply to your classroom help you engage your boys.

1. Clear Mission Objectives

The first thing that game designers understand about engaging their audience is; they always start with very clear mission objectives. Now whether it is a game on an iPhone or whether it is a complex multi-level game on an Xbox or a PlayStation. Almost every game starts with some kind of backstory that introduces the characters and introduces the mission objective. One of the things that boys go through when they are approaching any task is they have to assess the reason why they are doing the task. 

They have to assess the level of commitment that they have to put into completing the task. Before they start anything they really need to know why they’re doing it and what level of commitment is going to be required. This is where mission objectives or lesson objectives become imperative or in the classroom. You need to take the time at the beginning of every activity, lesson or task and help them understand the why of what they’re doing and help them understand what commitment level is going to be required of them as they do it. 

2. Learn as you Play 

The second thing you need to look at when you are trying to engage boys in the classroom is this, in video games the way that the gamer learns how to play a new game is they learn as they play. At each stage of the game there is a new lesson that needs to be learned. At each level they will introduce a new task, a new skill or a new aspect of understanding the game at a deeper level. This is where differentiation really comes in, you need to design your lessons in such a way that at each level they are learning a new skill. 

They are not just learning the lesson itself but you are teaching them the skill that is required to complete that lesson. Whether it is a writing skill, thinking skill, it needs to be attached to learning a skill to enhance their capability as learners.  Boys especially learn hands-on. So if you can design lessons that help them get their hands into something, what you will find is they learn as they do. Rather than trying to just give them a bunch of theoretical knowledge and then send them away to do the task, help them to find ways of learning as they do. They will be more engaged in the task at hand. 

3. Incremental Success

Number three is this, game designers build their games with incremental success. Almost no game exists where you have to complete it with a one hundred percent success rate before you advance to the next level. Most games will let you advance to the next level with only sixty percent success at the beginning. What they want to do is they want to keep the tension between challenging the player and not making it so hard that they give up. 

So almost every beginning of a game will have incremental success. It will let them feel like they are progressing. Let them feel like they are being successful even if they are not performing at a hundred percent of the proficiency of the game. The longer the game goes the higher the proficiency level becomes. It becomes harder because they want to keep challenging the player, without making it so hard that the player gives up. 

If you want to keep the boys engaged let them feel successful early on but do not make it easy all the way through. Step that success level up as you go, then they will feel challenged. They will always feel like they can actually achieve what you’re asking them to achieve.

4. Provide Regular feedback

Number four is this, games provide regular feedback all throughout the game. If you think about that game on the iPhone that was really popular a couple of years ago called subway surfers. As you went through the game you would be constantly collecting coins. It would give you a running tally and then at every level, you would have opportunities to buy certain things and upgrade certain aspects of the character.

So there was constant reinforcement that you were making progress. Whether it is coins, gems or dings there is a constant feedback loop in video games that tells the player “hey you are doing great keep on going”. We need more of that in classes, we need more constant positive reinforcement to keep our students motivated.

Boys thrive on positive reinforcement, so as they are progressing whether they are doing well or they are doing badly, you need to find something to praise them about. Find something to keep them going and do not make them wait. Do not do prizes where they have to wait till the end of the week before they get some kind of feedback on their behaviour or their performance. Give them regular gratification in the area of encouragement and what will happen is it will motivate them to keep going. 

 5. Set a High Ultimate Goal

The fifth thing is this; the ultimate benchmark or the ultimate goal is set high. Almost all video games have a final level that is really hard. You do not get to finish the final level unless you are really high in your proficiency. You do not get to say that you have completed the game unless you have worked hard to get to the end. The whole concept of everybody feeling like a winner and everybody receiving a prize devalues the effort of those that are willing to put in the extra time and effort to reach the highest levels. It is really important that you give opportunities for your high performers to feel like their effort was well deserved. That they actually get some kind of recognition for being at that top level.

Here is something interesting about boys, because boys are very competitive they do not respect games where everybody wins. Boys want to know that ultimately there is going to be a winner if they are going to put the effort in. If they are going to expend energy and time to learn the rules and strategies of a game (we are alluding to lessons being games at this stage so stay with me) that boy wants to know the game is worthy of his attention and will reward him for his effort. Any game that has everybody winning and does not have an ultimate winner, well most boys will not respect that.

Very often they will check out of the game or they will not put their best foot forward even if they know that they can’t be the ultimate winner. They need somebody or something to aspire to. They need to know that the highest level is actually going to be rewarded differently to everybody else. Therefore don’t be afraid to give opportunities for your high performers to succeed and to be celebrated. That doesn’t diminish the lower performers, it does not diminish the ones that struggle to be at the top level but it does encourage them to keep going. It keeps them motivated. It values their effort and it values the effort of those that are performing at a high level.

So that is five ways that I see video games helping you to engage boys in your classroom, this will apply to girls but more so for boys. 

1. Every lesson and every task needs to have a why. It needs to be very clear about what effort is required to complete it successfully.
2. Create opportunities to learn as they go. Boys are practical, they need to do hands-on activities. They learn as they work.
3. Opportunities for incremental success. Make sure that at the early stages of learning a task they have opportunities to feel like they’re succeeding.
4. Provide regular positive feedback. This keeps them playing for longer or keeps them learning for longer so find positive ways to encourage your boys to keep going.
5. Set the ultimate benchmark high. Celebrate those that put in the effort and put in the extra time to work at the highest level. Don’t devalue their effort and devalue their time by making everybody the same. 

Thanks so much for reading this blog. I hope you got a ton of value out of that. Don’t forget to comment and let us know what you thought or if you have specific topics you’d like us to cover let us know in the comments. 

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