Taktu til við að tvista: Námsleikir í skólastarf

Abstract

Meginmarkmið þessarar greinar er að fjalla um námsleiki, þ.e. kennslufræðilega leiki og frjálsan leik barna með fræðilegu yfirliti út frá kenningum Fröbel, Dewey, Piaget og Vygotsky um frjálsan leik og hvernig kenningar Gagné um skilyrði fyrir námi og kenning Csikszentmihalyi um flæði tengjast kennslufræðilegum leik. Þá er Aðalnámskrá grunnskóla skoðuð út frá leiknum og skoðaður munurinn á kennslufræðilegum leik og frjálsum leik. Einnig er fjallað um þróun og tilgang námsspilsins Taktu til við að tvista. Það er námsspil sem tengir saman nám og leik og getur hentað vel til upprifjunar á námsefni og til að auka þekkingu nemenda. Spilið má nota í öllum námsgreinum og með öllum aldurshópum. Rannsóknarspurning sem þessari grein er ætlað að svara er eftirfarandi: Hvernig getur nám átt sér stað í gegnum regluleik? Markmiðið með spilinu er að ýta undir samskipti og samvinnu nemenda og að nemendur fái hreyfingu og útrás í kennslustundum. Einnig er markmiðið að auka færni nemenda í viðkomandi námsgrein og að þeir séu virkir þátttakendur í eigin námi. Niðurstöðurnar benda til þess að þegar kennslufræðilegir leikir eru notaðir til þjálfunar og endurtekningar á ákveðnum námsþáttum má auðvelda nemendum að öðlast ákveðna færni í námsþættinum. Því má leiða líkum að því að nám eigi sér stað í gegnum leik og nemendur geti aukið við þekkingu sína og færni með þessari kennsluaðferð.

The National Curriculum Guide (Mennta- og menningarmálaráðuneyti [Ministry of education and culture], 2013) highlights creativity as one of the main pillars of education, emphasizing that “Creativity is based on curiosity, challenge, excitement and search. Grappling with the problem and finding a solution can, in itself, be the reward of creation”. Learning through play and educational games can be an important learning method, opening new dimensions where the joy of creation for children and youth can come into its own. The aim of this article is to shed light on the complexity of play and educational games through the theoretical background of what Friedrich Fröbel, John Dewey, Jean William Fritz Piaget and Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky say about play and how theories proposed by Robert M. Gagné and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi relate to educational games with a main focus on educational games. Gagné’s conditions of learning theory, is imported for educational games, are divided into five categories, all of which fall under the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains as discussed previously. The five learning outcomes: intellectual skills, cognitive strategies, verbal information, motor skills, and attitudes can be learned through games. Csikszentmihalyi’s flow theory has nine elements that can also be learned through educational play. The nine elements are; challenge-skill balance, action-awareness merging, clear goals, unambiguous feedback, concentration on the task at hand, sense of control, loss of self-consciousness, transformation of time, and an autotelic experience. The research question for this article is: Can education happen through educational games? The difference between educational play and free play is that in educational play there are expectations of performance, but in free games, the child itself controls the creative process and outcome. The National Curriculum Guide stated that: “To children play is a spontaneous means of learning and developing. In compulsory school it is important to retain this method in school activities and develop it as the pupils grow older”. The National Curriculum guide also stated that play is as fruitful a means of development and understanding for a 15-year-old pupil as it is for a six-year-old child. Play is a children’s way to learn both about themselves and the world they live in. Through role-plays, the pupils can speak and respond as conjured up from their own imaginations and experience. And through educational games they learn to discover new methods of working towards achieving goals and objectives in an interactive manner. The article tells us about games and about educational games and teachers’ role in relation to games and creative teaching. The article also provides a website with an idea bank, instructions that can be used by teachers and explanations of how to make the game from scratch and how to use it (instruction manual). Let’s Twist Again is an educational game that links play and learning, is suitable for refreshing study material and increasing student knowledge. The game can be used in all subjects and suits all age groups. It could also be useful in special education and for students of foreign origin. The aim of the game, Let´s Twist Again, is to promote communication and collaboration between students and make sure that students are given the opportunity to move around in lessons. The aim is also to increase students’ skills in the relevant subject and to have them to participate in their own learning. The website provides further information about the game, the game rules, instructions for teachers and an idea bank. The website also illustrates the development of the game and how it was developed with and for young children in preschool and in math and language teaching in compulsory education in Iceland.