Do Not Use Games for “Stealth Learning”

Often someone will say to me that the reason they want to include a game in a curriculum is because they want “stealth learning.” They don’t want the learners to know they are actually learning, instead, they want them to have fun and then learn.

This is wrong. It is not right. Research does not back up the “stealth learning” approach of games. In fact, game are the most effective for learning when they are part of a larger learning process. To maximize the learning potential of games, the best approach is to first teach fundamental subject matter that is necessary for the learner to learn in order to play the game, second, have the learner play the game and then third, have the learner reflect upon the learning.

Notice, we first told the learner what the needed to know (or learn) to play the game, we’ve made it abundantly clear. We made it explicit. The learner had no illusion of what they needed to learn to play the game. Then they played the game keeping in mind what they just learned (the game was the application of the learning). Then the learners need to reflect on the learning and, ideally, the game is played multiple times so the learner gets better and better at applying the skills from the game.

So when you decide to use a game for learning (a move I applaud) don’t hide the learning potential from the learners, let them in on the secret! it will lead to better learning.

Posted in: Games

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1 Comment

  1. Steen Grode August 9, 2014

    It is not that I disagree that stealt learning is a bad approach to teaching but your argument does not hold. In many games we do not give abundantly clear instructions as this would make the game uninteresting and boring. Actually the best game is those telling very little or nothing at all in form of instructions.
    One example can be any game with a strategy with a specific outcome. You would never ever tell this strategy when you begin the game. Look at Tic Tac Toe for instance. Instructions may be given, but nobody gives instructions in how to make the game a draw. Instead we let people fight to figure out.
    And notice what they are learning. On the surface it looks like the are learning to play Tic Tac Toe, but it is something different they learn if the teacher are up to it. It is teaching pure mathematics in a very advanced form, learning to analyze, to reason and argue for selected strategies versus other. So on the surface this looks very much like the case of stealth learning.
    But it does not have to be. The difference between learning to perform in the game, learning something stealth or learning at some meta level is all up to the didactical and pedagogical approach from the teacher. I think we agree in this. So the teacher has to scaffold a learning consciousness, an awareness even among young children that there is something more behind what they are having focus on.

Karl Kapp
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