by Gary Trotta of Training Games, Inc.

President Herbert Hoover popularized the phrase “The American system of rugged individualism.” This idea of American Individualism is indeed also found in our educational systems with instructor-centered lectures, individual assignments, and competitive grading, but really, is this the best way to learn?

From a Study by Felder and Brent of North Carolina University: "A large and rapidly growing body of research confirms the effectiveness of cooperative learning in higher education” They also put forth, “cooperatively taught students tend to exhibit higher academic achievement, greater persistence through graduation, better high-level reasoning and critical thinking skills."

Games incorporate teams and social interaction to achieve the benefits of cooperative learning.

Games can also help us to facilitate a multimodal approach to learning. It's true that we all learn differently. Our learning styles are a combination of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning approaches.

• Visual Learners – Demonstrations, videos, sequenced presentation, take notes, quiet during class

• Auditory Learners – Listen and remember, no notes, talkative in class, rely on lectures, discussion and Q&A sessions.

• Kinesthetic Learners – Direct involvement, impulsive, little patience, fidgety, prefer role playing, games, and group exercises.

• And a mixed bag is better. Research by Grinder in 1991 stated “In every group of thirty people an average of 22 are able to learn effectively as long as the instructor provides a blend of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic activity. 8 will rely primarily on one method of learning and therefore may struggle."

Finally games can promote positive emotion. Emotions are now known to be a critical catalyst in the learning process. Advertisers have known this forever, and use emotion to convince people to buy their product. The brain's amygdala influences memory consolidation and flavors our memories with emotional context which therefore makes them more easily recalled. Simply said, games drive positive emotions, emotions drive attention, and attention focuses learning.

Classroom games can positively affect the way we learn on a number of different fronts. Team games promote social interaction and cooperative learning. Games can be designed and delivered to take advantage of the many different ways we learn (Multi-Modal Learning). And finally games introduce a positive emotional element into training that has been shown to enhance learning retention.