Teaching Critical Thinking in Your School Gaming Club
Critical thinking is one of the most important skills students can develop, and tabletop roleplaying games (RPGs) and other gaming activities provide a natural environment for cultivating this ability. By teaching critical thinking in your school gaming club, you help students analyze situations, make informed decisions, evaluate consequences, and solve complex problems—skills that are essential both in and out of the classroom.
In this blog post, we’ll explore how to teach critical thinking through tabletop games, providing practical tips for educators looking to maximize the educational value of their school gaming clubs.
Why Teach Critical Thinking Through Gaming?
Games are an excellent medium for teaching critical thinking for several reasons:
Interactive Decision-Making: Games require players to make decisions in real time, often with incomplete information. This mirrors real-world problem-solving and encourages players to think critically about their choices.
Complex Scenarios: Many games present students with multifaceted scenarios that require them to evaluate multiple variables, make strategic decisions, and consider long-term consequences.
Collaborative Problem-Solving: In RPGs, players work together to overcome challenges, using their collective critical thinking skills to develop solutions. This collaborative aspect adds depth to the critical thinking process.
Risk and Reward: Games often incorporate elements of risk, which forces players to weigh potential gains against potential losses, teaching them to evaluate outcomes carefully before making a move.
Steps for Teaching Critical Thinking in Your School Gaming Club
1. Choose Games That Encourage Strategic Thinking
The foundation of teaching critical thinking in a gaming club is selecting games that emphasize strategy and problem-solving. Not all games are created equally when it comes to fostering critical thinking, so it’s important to choose ones that challenge players to think deeply.
Roleplaying Games (RPGs): RPGs like Dungeon Crawl Classics or Pathfinder require players to make strategic decisions in combat, diplomacy, and puzzle-solving. These games often involve moral dilemmas, resource management, and long-term consequences for decisions.
Strategy Board Games: Games like Settlers of Catan, Pandemic, or Terraforming Mars push students to think strategically and plan ahead. These games involve managing resources, predicting opponents’ moves, and developing short- and long-term strategies.
Puzzle-Solving Games: Games that involve puzzles, such as Escape Room-style board games, encourage students to analyze information, recognize patterns, and find creative solutions.
Game Selection Tips:
Look for games that involve both individual and team-based critical thinking.
Choose games that present players with complex, multi-faceted scenarios.
Avoid games that rely solely on chance or luck.
2. Encourage Analytical Thinking During Gameplay
Once the game is underway, it’s important to actively encourage analytical thinking. Help students understand that part of critical thinking involves analyzing the game situation, breaking it down into its components, and considering different options.
Ask Guiding Questions: Throughout the game, ask students questions that prompt them to analyze their choices. For example, “What are your options in this scenario?” or “How might this decision impact the rest of the team?” These questions help students reflect on their choices and think more critically about their next move.
Encourage Multiple Perspectives: When students are faced with a problem, encourage them to consider different angles. For example, if they are trying to decide between two courses of action, ask them to explore the potential outcomes of each choice. This process of comparing alternatives strengthens their critical thinking.
Promote the Evaluation of Risks: In games where risks and rewards are involved, prompt students to weigh the potential outcomes. Ask them to consider the probability of success versus failure and to discuss how much they’re willing to risk for the potential reward.
Analytical Thinking Prompts:
“What is the most important factor to consider in this decision?”
“What are the short-term and long-term consequences of this action?”
“How does this choice align with your overall strategy?”
3. Teach Problem-Solving Strategies
Critical thinking is closely tied to problem-solving, and gaming offers an excellent opportunity to develop these skills. In both RPGs and strategy games, players frequently encounter challenges that require creative solutions. As a facilitator, you can teach students different approaches to problem-solving that will help them think critically about obstacles they face in the game.
Break Problems Into Smaller Pieces: When students are confronted with a complex problem, teach them to break it into smaller, more manageable components. This approach helps them focus on solving one part of the problem at a time, rather than feeling overwhelmed by the entire situation.
Encourage Creative Thinking: Sometimes the best solutions aren’t the most obvious. Encourage students to think outside the box and consider unconventional approaches to solving problems. In RPGs, this could involve using a non-combat strategy to diffuse a dangerous situation or finding a creative use for an item.
Evaluate Previous Solutions: After students solve a problem, guide them through an evaluation of their solution. Ask them what worked, what didn’t, and what they would do differently next time. This process of reflection strengthens their critical thinking and helps them learn from their experiences.
Problem-Solving Strategies:
“What smaller steps can you take to approach this problem?”
“Can you think of a solution that hasn’t been tried yet?”
“What would happen if you tried a different approach?”
4. Promote Logical Reasoning and Deductive Thinking
Logical reasoning and deductive thinking are essential components of critical thinking. In games, students can practice these skills by identifying patterns, making inferences, and drawing conclusions based on the information they have.
Recognize Patterns: In games that involve patterns, such as puzzle games or even combat strategies in RPGs, encourage students to recognize and predict patterns. This helps them make informed decisions based on previous outcomes.
Use Deductive Reasoning: When students need to make decisions based on incomplete information, guide them through the process of deductive reasoning. Help them infer possibilities from the clues or facts they have and eliminate unlikely options.
Test Hypotheses: Encourage students to create hypotheses about the game’s mechanics, story, or the actions of other players. Have them test their theories during gameplay and reflect on whether their deductions were correct.
Logical Thinking Prompts:
“What patterns do you notice in the actions of other players?”
“Based on what you know, what conclusions can you draw?”
“What clues suggest that this might be the best course of action?”
5. Facilitate Reflection and Debriefing
Critical thinking doesn’t stop when the game ends—reflection and debriefing are essential for helping students internalize what they’ve learned. After a gaming session, take time to discuss the choices they made and the strategies they used.
Encourage Self-Reflection: Ask students to reflect on their own decision-making process during the game. What decisions were they most proud of? What could they have done differently? This self-reflection helps them think critically about their own actions.
Discuss Team Dynamics: In team-based games, facilitate a discussion about how the team worked together to solve problems. Were they able to collaborate effectively? How did they combine their strengths to overcome challenges?
Highlight Critical Thinking Moments: During the debrief, point out specific moments in the game where students demonstrated strong critical thinking skills. This reinforces the value of these skills and encourages students to continue developing them.
Debriefing Questions:
“What was the most challenging decision you had to make, and how did you approach it?”
“How did your team solve the problem together?”
“Looking back, would you have made any different choices?”
6. Encourage Iterative Learning
One of the most powerful aspects of games is the opportunity for iterative learning—students can apply what they’ve learned from previous games to future sessions, refining their critical thinking skills over time.
Revisit Strategies: Encourage students to carry lessons from one game into the next. If a particular strategy didn’t work in a previous session, how can they adjust it for future success?
Adapt to New Challenges: As students become more experienced players, introduce new challenges and complexities that force them to adapt their thinking. This continual progression will deepen their critical thinking skills.
Create New Goals: Set new objectives for students to focus on in future games, such as improving their decision-making speed or experimenting with new problem-solving approaches.
Iterative Learning Strategies:
Have students create personal goals for their critical thinking development.
Encourage students to reflect on previous games and identify areas for improvement.
Introduce increasingly complex scenarios to challenge their problem-solving skills.
Conclusion
Teaching critical thinking through your school gaming club is a powerful way to help students develop essential skills that will benefit them throughout their academic and personal lives. By selecting strategic games, encouraging analytical thinking, and fostering problem-solving and logical reasoning, you can create an engaging environment where students are challenged to think critically at every turn.
With consistent reflection, practice, and a supportive atmosphere, students will grow as thinkers, decision-makers, and collaborators—ready to tackle any challenge, both in the game and beyond.
