There are many games you play in your due course of activities. But have you ever thought about learning with games?
For example, there are many children love playing cricket.
Is it possible to learn from Cricket? Let us see…
In this game learners are divided into two groups. One group asks questions whereas the other group is supposed to tell the answer. As in cricket the baller is given chance to ask 6 questions in a row. Rules have been framed for getting boundaries and sixes based on the complexities of the problem and nature of answer.
Learning Science
In this game learners are divided into two groups. One group asks questions whereas the other group is supposed to tell the answer. As in cricket the baller is given chance to ask 6 questions in a row. Rules have been framed for getting boundaries and sixes based on the complexities of the problem and nature of answer. Children enjoy the game and learn the lessons as well. Similarly, children play the game of puzzles as well as carrom. If we improvise the game for learning laws of motion, laws of friction, laws of reflection, chemical combinations etc. it would be much easier to understand.
It can also be used for developing imagination by asking learners to arrange the coins in different shapes and patterns and give them exciting names.
As floor games are quite popular among the village children, they can arrange lot of floor games to learn mathematics, grammar, science and social sciences. In fact, in all classrooms 10X10 squarish pattern can be drawn. In the corridor various patterns 3X3, 4X4, 5X5, 6X6, etc and other geometrical patterns can be displayed.
These activities are new to both teachers and learners, but can be an interesting session of learning.
Developing Innovative skills
A small survey of the games being played by the children indicates that these games can be used for developing creativity and innovative skills.
In a certain School, children were asked to design a game of Ludo for five persons, chess of three persons, carrom of three/five/six persons, a game of carrom in which nobody loses, new ball games, etc. The result was a creative outcome. Children successfully designed a chess as a floor game. In these games they modify the rules to suit the needs of the constraints imposed. In the designing of these games both teachers and learners are asked to participate jointly.
As the games are new to the teachers also, it becomes a learning session for them too. This process have been extended and learners have been asked to design new games for learning their lessons. Learners have designed several card games to learn various lessons taught in the class.
During science exhibitions learners are asked to pick up all local games and the toys they generally play with and then find out the scientific principles involved in them. This way they get used to finding scientific principles involved in the activities of daily life.
Use multi intelligence methods
There is a traditional method of teaching a topic in the schools. For example, learners are asked to memorise multiplication tables or they may be asked to develop tables by simple addition. Multiple intelligence methods gave us the clue that we can develop many new methods for learning tables.
For example, we can develop folk songs to learn tables. We can also use bamboo sticks for learning tables. One can also use floor games for this purpose. We can try to apply learning tables to daily life situations. For examples, it may be used for textile weaving, or sweater designing, etc.
Using multiple intelligence channels help children in learning the art of creation of symbols and patterns, mixing or merger or new symbols and patterns. Generally, children are narrated a story, they are asked to answer simple questions to test their underst-anding. We, however, can decide to do something different.
Suppose, children were narrated stories slowly, they are asked to depict the story in the form of series of small pictures. During the course of conversion of verbal matters into pictorial form, they had to devise several interesting symbolic representations. Learners can look for symbols in their neighbourhood and daily life. This way they can get an insight into creation of new symbols or fiinding new meaning to old symbols.
For example, in one of the stories learners had to depict fight between two people. Some did it as two people taking sticks in their hands, some did it by showing broken chairs, some did it by showing as inverted chairs and so on.
Similarly, once in a school, teacher asked the learners to depict numbers as members of number family. For example, 16 is made up of 8+8, 9+7, 10+6, 11+5, 12+4 and so on. 16 has a number family of 8 and 8, 9 and 7, 10 and 6, etc. They can be shown as number friends to generate the number 16. First of all the teacher asked to find out the number friends. Then asked to find out objects in nature which go together. For example, petals of flower go together, fishes move in water together, leaves on branches go together, and so on. Learners draw the figure of the paired objects and then showed number friends on it.
This whole exercise was to enable learners to appreciate the social interpretation of mathematical operations. When children came out with the final project, generally children showed their number family on a flower pot or on a tree, or flower. But one child showed his numbers in an original way on the eyes of a group of potatoes. This boy picked up the idea at the time of mother slicing potato for preparing vegetable for the family.
Hence, it is clear that working in multiple intelligence scenario helps in development of creative skills of children.
