Game-based learning has become a buzzword in leadership and skills development, offering several advantages over traditional learning methods.
It is cost-effective and low-risk. Perhaps even more important, learners can re-enact a precise set of circumstances multiple times, exploring the consequences of different actions. In addition, well-designed games permit learning experiences that aren’t possible in real life.
“Game-based learning is using games to teach specific content. Immersing your learners in a simulated experience using game mechanics is a great way to learn. Game-based learning gives learners the freedom to fail and focuses on using the game to reinforce the learning material and provide context. In essence, the game encourages the player to practice, learn from their mistakes, and gain many important skills,” explains Lize Monametsi, head of Aim’s game-based learning division.
“In the past, game-based learning environments were prohibitively expensive for most organisations. Traditional game- and simulation-based learning applications have typically entailed mainframes, special interface equipment, and a years-long design, development and implementation process. Only a few sectors – most notably, aviation and the military – were able to justify the cost, because the quality of training was a life-or-death issue. Today, technology has evolved to the point where game-based learning will be the way of the future.”
While many consulting houses internationally offer generic games for business skills development, few provide a customised, or customisable solution that allows for the specific business needs and permutations required by companies to illustrate real-world scenarios. That is why Aim has designed The Navigator – the first and only tailor-made, customisable game-based learning platform on iPads.
“To progress in a game is to learn; when we are actively engaged with a game, our minds are experiencing the pleasure of grappling with (and coming to understand) a new system. The implications of delivering game experiences for people development are enormous. By harnessing the power of a well-designed game to achieve specific learning goals, we enable a workforce of highly motivated learners who avidly engage with and practice applying problem-solving skills.”
Learning, even at its start, takes place in a simplified subset of the real world, she explains. “For example, the setting for a strategy game should represent an actual company, so that players can easily map their in-game behaviour to on-the-job performance. However, it must be a simplified version that omits unimportant details, so that players can focus on aspects of the simulation that are relevant to the learning objective – things like the economic environment and resources. This is the foundation of The Navigator.”
The game encourages active and critical, not passive, learning. In the strategy game example, this means players do not merely watch correct and incorrect examples of strategising, followed by a quiz – they actually think, act, experience consequences and pursue goals in a variable game environment.
“Learning is a cycle of probing the world (doing something); reflecting on this action and, on this basis, forming a hypothesis; re-probing the world to test the hypothesis; and then accepting or rethinking the hypothesis. The Navigator therefore presents a functional environment in which players may choose from and evaluate many different actions. The goal is to find the right course of action via experimentation – making choices and experiencing the consequences. With The Navigator, learners get lots of practice in a context where the practice is not boring.”
Monametsi adds that The Navigator can provide an extremely high degree of connection, mentorship and inspiration, yet solves the challenges of ever-tightening training budgets and a fierce competition for a learner’s attention.
“Worldwide spending on games exceeded $93-billion in 2013, according to a report from Gartner. That’s up from the $78,9-billion spent in 2012. The analyst house projects that customers will spend $101,6-billion in 2014 and $111-billion by the end of 2015.
“In addition to marketplace forces, even the most superficial observations of children reveal the obvious connection between games, learning, and retention. Research indicates that games vs. text-based knowledge, when tested immediately after the instruction, are likely to have similar results, but when tested days later the game-based knowledge is better retained – and applied at work. So why, in the workplace, do we resist employing the effectiveness of games, and assume that seriousness is a prerequisite for learning? The Navigator encompasses the future of skills development, offering real, verifiable outcomes.”