How to Include Standards Accountability in Your Gaming Group
Running a tabletop roleplaying game (RPG) or board game club in an educational setting offers countless opportunities for students to develop critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and problem-solving skills. However, as educators, it's essential to align these activities with academic standards to ensure that they contribute meaningfully to students' learning and development. Standards accountability can strengthen the legitimacy of your gaming group, ensuring it meets educational goals and can be integrated into formal instruction.
In this blog post, we will discuss how to include standards accountability in your gaming group, focusing on practical strategies for educators. We will explore aligning gaming activities with academic standards such as Common Core, Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), and 21st Century Learning Skills.
Why is Standards Accountability Important?
Incorporating standards accountability into your gaming group provides multiple benefits:
Educational Rigor: Aligning games with standards ensures that your activities go beyond fun and foster academic skills.
Transparency: It helps justify the club’s educational value to administrators, parents, and other stakeholders.
Learning Outcomes: Students can clearly understand what academic skills they are developing during gaming activities.
Measurable Success: Aligning games with standards gives you a structured way to assess the effectiveness of your gaming club.
By including standards accountability, you reinforce the educational impact of gaming and demonstrate how it can be part of a well-rounded curriculum.
Step 1: Identify Relevant Educational Standards
The first step to ensuring standards accountability is identifying the educational standards most relevant to your gaming activities. This may include national, state, or local standards, depending on your school or district's requirements.
Common Core Standards: For educators in the U.S., Common Core Standards offer benchmarks for English Language Arts (ELA) and mathematics. Many roleplaying and board games naturally align with these standards through reading, writing, and problem-solving activities.
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS): If your gaming group focuses on science-related themes, the NGSS can provide an excellent framework. Games involving scientific reasoning, environmental challenges, or problem-solving align with NGSS standards.
21st Century Skills: These include critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity. Games inherently build these skills, making them perfect for aligning with 21st Century Skills frameworks.
State or Local Standards: Be sure to check your state or district’s specific standards, as they may have unique requirements that are critical to include in your accountability measures.
How to Identify Relevant Standards:
Review your state’s education department website for state-specific standards.
Use tools like Common Core’s website or NGSS online resources to explore relevant benchmarks.
Consider the subject areas most closely aligned with your game’s content (e.g., ELA for storytelling games, math for strategy games).
Step 2: Plan Gaming Activities Around Specific Standards
Once you have identified the standards, the next step is to plan gaming activities that align directly with those educational benchmarks. This will ensure that your gaming sessions contribute to academic growth and help students meet measurable objectives.
ELA Standards: Many roleplaying games (RPGs) involve reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Align your RPG campaigns with ELA standards by:
Encouraging students to write character backstories, journal entries, or campaign logs.
Assigning students the task of summarizing game events or reflecting on decision-making during sessions.
Focusing on narrative structure and storytelling to teach literary elements like plot, character development, and theme.
Mathematics Standards: Strategy games that involve resource management, calculation, or probability can easily align with mathematics standards. For example:
Use games like Settlers of Catan to teach probability, resource management, and cost-benefit analysis.
Incorporate games like Carcassonne or Ticket to Ride to focus on spatial reasoning and geometric concepts.
Science Standards (NGSS): Science-related games that challenge students to solve environmental or biological problems can fit into the NGSS framework. You can:
Use games like Pandemic to discuss ecosystems, viruses, or team-based problem-solving.
Introduce RPGs where characters explore scientific discoveries or environmental conservation themes.
Social Studies Standards: Games with historical themes or diplomatic scenarios can align with social studies curricula. Some strategies include:
Running historical simulation games to discuss important events in world history, such as Risk or Through the Ages.
Use diplomacy-heavy games like Diplomacy or 7 Wonders to teach about economics, international relations, or historical empires.
Key Planning Considerations:
Ensure that each gaming session has a clear educational objective aligned with a specific standard.
Tie game mechanics to academic skills (e.g., calculating hit points in an RPG to support math skills).
Rotate games to cover multiple subject areas and standards throughout the school year.
Step 3: Integrate Reflection and Assessment
Reflection and assessment are essential components of standards accountability. They ensure that students recognize what they’ve learned during gaming activities and give educators a way to measure progress toward academic goals.
Student Reflections: After each gaming session, have students reflect on what they learned. For example:
Ask students to write a brief reflection on how they used collaboration skills in the game.
Have students connect gaming scenarios to real-world problems or academic concepts, such as linking a diplomatic strategy in a game to historical alliances.
Peer and Self-Assessment: Encourage peer review and self-assessment, particularly in collaborative games. Students can:
Evaluate their own problem-solving or decision-making process.
Reflect on their contributions to group success or areas for improvement.
Teacher Assessment: As the facilitator, you can assess student progress using rubrics tied to the standards you’ve aligned the games with. For example:
Create a rubric that evaluates writing assignments based on narrative structure, grammar, and clarity for RPG-based writing tasks.
Assess group collaboration and communication during gameplay based on teamwork-related standards.
Reflection and Assessment Strategies:
Use written reflections, exit tickets, or journals after each session to gauge student learning.
Develop rubrics that align directly with standards to measure both content knowledge and soft skills.
Incorporate self-assessment tools that allow students to reflect on their growth in key areas, such as communication or problem-solving.
Step 4: Use Data to Track Progress
Standards accountability involves tracking student progress over time to ensure that educational goals are being met. Data collection helps you demonstrate the success of your gaming group in achieving academic objectives.
Track Participation: Keep a record of student attendance and participation in each session. This helps identify which students are consistently engaging and where additional support may be needed.
Assess Academic Growth: Use assessment results (written reflections, quizzes, etc.) to track individual and group academic growth over time. Identify trends that show progress in areas such as critical thinking, collaboration, or subject-specific knowledge.
Share Data with Stakeholders: Use the data you collect to report back to administrators, parents, and other stakeholders. This transparency can help you demonstrate the educational value of your gaming club and secure ongoing support.
Tracking Strategies:
Keep a log of student participation, tracking how often and how deeply students engage with games.
Collect and review written assessments to measure growth in academic standards.
Use the data to adjust gaming activities or lesson plans to better meet educational goals.
Step 5: Communicate the Value to Administrators
To ensure long-term success for your gaming club, it’s essential to communicate its value to school administrators and other stakeholders. Demonstrating how your gaming group aligns with teaching standards and supports academic growth will help gain their ongoing support.
Prepare Data: Present data on student participation, assessment results, and feedback from students and parents. Show how your gaming activities contribute to meeting educational standards.
Align with School Goals: Tie your club’s activities to broader school or district goals, such as promoting collaboration, critical thinking, or preparing students for 21st-century skills.
Highlight Student Successes: Share stories of student success, emphasizing how gaming has helped students improve academically or develop soft skills like leadership and teamwork.
Tips for Communicating with Administrators:
Focus on measurable outcomes when discussing the benefits of your gaming group.
Emphasize how the club supports academic standards and prepares students for real-world challenges.
Share positive feedback from students and parents to illustrate the impact of the club on student engagement and learning.
Conclusion
Incorporating standards accountability into your gaming group ensures that the activities are both engaging and educational. By identifying relevant standards, planning activities that align with academic goals, integrating assessment and reflection, tracking student progress, and communicating the value of your club, you can build a gaming group that supports student learning while fostering essential life skills.
By applying these steps, you’ll create a gaming group that not only captures students’ imaginations but also meets the academic and developmental needs of a 21st-century education.
