Considerations when implementing a unit of student-designed games

“As students negotiate, debate, overcome conflict, and navigate through problem together while inventing games, they enter a microcosm of community life, encountering the challenges and joys of civic responsibility.” (Butler, 2016, p. 16)

Section 1: Introduction

With the world becoming more complex, there is an even greater need to ensure students are equipped with the 21st Century Competencies (21CC) that will help them navigate the challenges in the future. Due to the nature of PE, it is usually identified as the subject that has the most potential to nurture many of these 21CCs. Students’ physical performance, cognitive understanding, social development, and emotional states are intimately connected as they play games with their peers. The three learning domains (i.e., psychomotor, cognitive, and affective), thus, cannot be compartmentalized and subdivided into the different learning domains because human systems are nested and interconnected (Butler, 2016). That puts PE teachers in a unique position to design learning experiences that also nurtures their 21CCs and not leave anything to chance.  

It is this reason that Inquiry Based Learning (IBL) approaches in PE like Nonlinear Pedagogy, Game-Based Approaches and student-designed games are widely adopted by many PE teachers. The opportunities to problem solve, collaborate, and inquire presented in these approaches enable students to learn more than just playing the game. Allowing students to design their own games, for example, has been well-researched to provide an inclusive, enriching, and holistic learning experience for students in PE (Butler, 2016; Hastie, 2010; Rodrigo, 2018). If done well, student-designed games can trigger the inquisitive nature of students, heighten their engagement in learning, and allow them to experience and learn a host of 21CCs like collaboration, communication, and critical and inventive thinking. In this article, we will highlight five important considerations when embarking on this game creation journey to harness the full potential of inquiry.    

Section 2: IBL in action - student-designed games using softball concepts in Changkat Changi Secondary School

In Changkat Changi Secondary School (CCSS), students learn the game of softball in Secondary Three. This is the only striking/fielding module they have in the whole of their secondary school life. This curricular conundrum, thus, lies therein within the fact that many students may not be familiar with the complexity of games concepts in softball as the last time they learned and played any striking/fielding games was when they were in Primary Schools. 

The teachers at CCSS decided that an IBL approach, specifically student-designed games, would present many opportunities for deep learning in the striking/fielding category of games to happen. But the implementation of IBL would require careful planning for it to work. The following section details what CCSS teachers did from planning to implementation to make it a success. 

The segments below are considerations when implementing IBL, and making it work for Physical Education lessons. 

a. Crafting the problem statement for everyone

‘’How does empowering students to learn softball skills look like?’’

This is the problem statement the Secondary Three team of teachers came up with. This statement helps to frame the thinking at each juncture of the learning design. Along the way, we are reminded of the intent of the learning design through reinforcement of the statement. 

The team sat down and unpacked the statement further. There three important concepts of softball according to the 2014 PE syllabus and considered using an IBL approach to teach them. They are:

• Sending ball into space - Learning Outcome (LO) 2 (batting)

• Advancing bases to score LO4 and LO5 (base-running)

• Defending space and bases LO6, LO7, LO8 and LO9 (fielding by throwing and catching)

Looking intently at the psychomotor, cognitive, and affective domains, the teachers began to unpack three unique game concepts of softball that they want their students to deepen their understanding. An inquiry-based approach can encourage students to devise practice tasks that creatively allow them to hone discrete psychomotor skills like batting into space, sending the ball with accuracy and catching it with confidence in representative game settings. While all these information-movement coupling happens, the teachers also intentionally design the learning experience to ensure students learn and experience key components of 21CCs through the game. Opportunity to practice harmony for one, is quite evidently on display while students storm and norm ideas during the design task phase!

An inquiry approach, where students are empowered to explore, experiment and problem solve as a team will then provide students with an enriched experience to learn values, skills and concepts imbued in a game of softball coherently. A strong problem statement sets the stage for the pedagogy to happen.

b. Situating student-designed games within the curriculum

With reference to Figure 1, the teachers designed a 5-lesson micro-unit to situate in the 16-hour curriculum time. Three of the lessons are face-to-face lessons in school, while the other two are set as home-based learning.

It is ideal to give students the appropriate game experience through the regular unit curriculum leading up to a 6v6 game. The micro-unit then comes in three-quarter into the whole module, when students can apply some concepts of game during play, as well as have some developing levels of competencies in game skills. 

It is wise to preempt students at the start of the module that there will be a student-designed game component to the module. This is to empower students, building ownership in them that the module will get them involved to create self-similar softball tasks that can help them improve learning near the end of the unit. 

It is important for any team of teachers teaching student-designed games to believe in the impact IBL has on holistic student outcomes, beyond just being able to play the game.  It is then about having the conviction and belief to present learning through a problem, issue, or an idea to enhance learning. 

c. Fostering collaboration and ownership

For any pedagogical innovation to be sustainable, collective teacher efficacy is needed (Brinson, Diana & Steiner, 2007). Collective teacher efficacy is the belief teachers hold as a group that they can influence student learning positively together (refer to figure 2).

In CCSS, teachers teaching classes in the same level were involved as one professional learning team. For the Secondary Three team, the teachers have decided to focus on IBL using student-designed games to deepen students’ understanding of softball concepts.

This strategy is used because it aligns a shared vision amongst teachers. For inquiry-based approaches to work, teachers have to talk about what pain points they all experienced to some extent and co-construct a common goal to work towards. In the same vein, the conversation to co-construction of goals and vision elucidates the beliefs of each teacher, leading to greater empathy, understanding and acknowledgement of each other. 

d. Providing support for students

Consider this. As a student, you are introduced to a game you have little experience of. Following seven to eight lessons of learning about the game, you are now told to invent a mini game based on how you want to improve in the game. Then you are left on your own to figure things out.

How frustrated will you get? While the teachers have the best intentions to empower students and give them space to innovate, structures and processes to draw boundaries and illustrate possibilities would certainly support the creative process. 

The group task card template below (Fig.3) is one of the structures the teachers use to guide students in their inquiry process. With it, the teachers are allowing students to follow steps towards creating games. It is an evidence-based process. Teachers can ideate alongside them as they post their draft ideas on it and support them in their journey of inquiry. 

Another important structure the teachers have put in place is the use of Padlet as a learning repository for collection of student artifacts along their inquiry journeys. Within each class’s Padlet page (Fig. 4), teachers have columns that indicate what should be placed within it. For example, the column on ‘game play videos’ instructs groups to have a game play videoed for participants to view when they visit their game booths later during the carnival. 

e. Empowering students by providing a clear end in mind.

There are certain elements of the module that really moved the needle in the pursuit of meaningful, impactful learning within the IBL frame. With a clear end in mind by instituting a gallery walk and games carnival, students are reminded of the culminating element of the module where they will need to showcase their work to others. It keeps them motivated and aligned their work to the success criteria needed for a successful gallery walk and games carnival. Here is an elaboration of the 2 events:

Gallery Walk - By lesson 3 of the micro-unit, where the first few drafts of their games start to form, it is important to give groups a chance to pitch their ideas to their class, and the pedagogy to do so is a gallery walk. Make each group go through the paces with a presentation to the class and you will start identifying gaps/challenges in many aspects - be it how the game is designed, how the scoring system needs to be improved, or just if the game is challenging enough or not. The gallery walk will then end with the student audience giving feedback digitally, and each group takes their set of feedback to work on their next draft.

Games Carnival - It will be remiss if students work on a project for hours (including home-based learning) and not let them showcase it! It is henceforth the most exciting part of our micro-unit - making the carnival the ultimate end-goal of the module. Like a real carnival, booths are set up, with prizes (healthy ones) bought from the PE department’s budget, and other classes’ students are invited from the same timetable banding. Each group sets up their own game booth, and game play video (explainer video really) is set up on PLDs to digitalize the presentation of games to players. It was a roaring success each time seeing the fun they have!

With a cohort size of 222 Secondary Three students, the professional learning team managed to conduct student-designed games modules for all seven classes within the curriculum in 2022. At the end of the module, 17 student-designed games were selected to be part of the softball module resource by the team. (Refer to figure 5 as an example)

In summary, the student-designed games micro-unit allows many opportunities for students to hone communication, collaboration, and information skills through their many brainstorming sessions and iterations of the game designs. 

When teachers have a clear end in mind, students are empowered to take charge of their own learning within the boundaries of the structures set in place. Students’ learning as a result can be extremely satisfying as highlighted by one of the teachers involved in the micro-unit design: 

“While the students enjoyed the process of creating their own games, I found it highly satisfying to connect their ‘original’ concepts with existing rules in striking fielding games such as cricket and baseball.”

Conclusion

Building on the instinct of students to create and play, student-designed games set the stage for learning to happen authentically. As students negotiate conflicts, work towards a common goal, communicate their ideas, make a collective decision, think creatively and critically to problem solve, they learn so much more in the process of acquiring a deeper understanding of the games’ concepts. 

In addition, when students are empowered to inquire, create, and collaborate with their peers, motivation and engagement increases too, as we have seen in the example above. Having said that, IBL approaches like student-designed games can be complex. Due to its fluid nature, what happens in the class can be unpredictable and teachers need to be flexible in their facilitation and adapt to the situation. This comes with practice and a willingness to embrace failure as part of learning. 

If you are thinking of trying out student-designed games, consider starting small. Ensuring that it is manageable, and you are not overwhelmed is key to a sustained practice. We are certain you will be amazed by what your students will learn when we learn to let go and empower them to create and solve problems. 

Enjoy the journey!

Article Contributed by: 

Mr Jason Zhuo, Subject Head / PE&CCA, Changkat Changi Secondary School. 

Mr Teng Tse Sheng, Master Teacher, PESTA

REFERENCES

Brinson, Dana, and Lucy Steiner. "Building Collective Efficacy: How Leaders Inspire Teachers to Achieve. Issue Brief." Center for comprehensive school reform and improvement (2007).

Butler, J. (2016). Playing Fair: Using student-invented games to prevent bullying, teach democracy, and promote social justice (Champaign, IL, Human Kinetics).

Hastie, P. A. (2010). Student designed games: Strategies for promoting creativity, cooperation, and skill development. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. 

How Collective Teacher Efficacy Develops. (2021, June 4). ASCD. https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/how-collective-teacher-efficacy-develops

Richards, K. Andrew R., Thomas J. Templin, and Kim Graber. "The socialization of teachers in physical education: Review and recommendations for future works." Kinesiology Review 3, no. 2 (2014): 113-134.

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