When considering the many interests of youth, Middle School teachers often resign to ask the question “how can we compete?” How can we compete with their social lives, with sports, with electronics? The question should not be “how can we compete?”, but “how can we accommodate?” How can we use students’ interests to engage them and further their learning? John Pagnotti and William B. Russell III answer these questions with videogames. Their article “Using Civilization IV to Engage Students in World History Content” outlines a plan for using a modern videogame to teach a mini unit on the importance of technology.
Why use a videogame? The authors claim that videogames allow students to learn by doing, not by passively reading or theorizing (Pagnotti, Russell 40). Videogames also immerse students in[to] environments where they “engage in learning experiences just for the pleasure of doing so (Pagnotti, Russell 40). The authors also claim that videogames help learners “internalize information readily”. I agree. When I was in Middle School my friends and I all knew about the stories of Saladin, Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun and Joan of Arc because of the dedication to history in the video game “Age of Empires II”. I don’t remember what I learned in Social Studies then, but I know exactly what I learned for “Age of Empires II”.
“Civilization IV” is even better for teaching Middle School students about Social Studies. In “Civilization IV.”, each player picks one of eighteen historical leaders and begins their civilization in the stone age with one city and one warrior. They proceed to compete for cultural, military, technological and/or diplomatic dominance. Civilizations must balance their immediate needs and researching new technologies. Technology helps every aspect of the game (you can discover agriculture to increase population, bronze working to increase military strength, banking to increase income etc.) and and players set their own development priorities by choosing a path through a complex technology tree. The effect of technological research on the growth of a civilization is the central theme in Pagnotti and Russell’s mini unit.
The mini unit consists of five lessons, one hour each. The lessons center around two questions: “Does technological development change the course of human history?” and “Should societies invest valuable resources toward technological research when those resources could immediately reduce hunger, housing issues, or the suffering of people?” The first two lessons focus on introduction and discussion. In the third lesson, the students would build a civilization concentrating on population, production, or gold. In the fourth lesson the students would take a more balanced approach, using a more balanced approach to growth and technology. Their experience on day three would leave the students well behind their more technologically advancedAI adversaries. On day four students would be much more successful. On day five students would discuss their findings and relate them to the real world by asking them to think of different situations in which societies couldn’t afford to invest in technology (Pagnotti and Russell, 43). The article includes sample handouts and essay questions from a very successful trial run they performed with a grade 9 class in Florida.
The arguments in favor of Pagnotti and Russell’s findings are compelling. A teacher observing the grade 9 class commented “I have never had students this focused on learning history” (Pagnotti, Russell 44). The discussion on day five was energetic and fully engaged. Some might argue that the students are only interested in the lesson because they get to play a videogame. But it doesn’t really matter why the students are interestedas long as the discussion is lively and the learning is clear. Some might ask “what if some students don’t like videogames?” Some students don’t like reading. I believe that more students would enjoy trying something new than completing another poster board. Admittedly, the videogame is created to be competitive and balanced rather than to simulate real life. However, it illustrates the effects of technological disparity. A large part of Social Studies is learning how to pick out the truth amid a din of distraction. Teachers must facilitate a discussion surrounding the issues of using a videogame as simulation, but the mini unit is still relevant.
If I were to use Civilization IV in the classroom I would use their full mini unit. Pagnotti and Russell cite how it relates to the NCSS curriculum standards, but it also aligns with the Grade 8 PLO surrounding economy and technology. While I could imagine improving the line of questioning so that students could consider what leads to technological advancement in the first place, I would save that for a separate discussion. If I planned to use a videogame to help teach a weeks’ worth of classes I would want to have a strong case study to fall back on so that I could show teachers and administrators that it works. The value of this mini unit is not only the substantial learning it offers but also the association it creates with a world in which learning need not be sacrificed for the sake of fun.
Work Cited
Pagnotti, John and William B. Russell III. “Using Civilization IV to Engage Students in World History Content.” The Social Studies (2012): 103:1, 39-48. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00377996.2011.558940, 6 February 2012.
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