Tag Archives: Small-group gaming

The return of small-group gaming

To continue last year’s goal-setting and teamwork practice with New Super Mario Bros Wii, this year we’re going to mash up Mario Kart and cycling teams.
Last year we used a lives-lost-per-level ratio to determine which teams of players were most efficient at preserving one another’s lives. Teams with more fluent players were sometimes at an [...]

Small-group Gaming, Part 5 – Students’ Perspectives on Purpose

Here are four student perspectives on our soft-skills work with New Super Mario Bros. Wii.
Playing the Wii is not kind of silly. We play the Wii because of teamwork…. We’re a team what will stay alive and we don’t tell each other to say shut up or to get out of the game. [...]

Small-group Gaming, Part 4: Strategery

This week we spent some time Thursday coming up with teamwork and game-play strategies for our Friday Wii collaboration contest.
Results of our strategizing were mixed with only half the groups improving from last week to this week. At this point I’m wishing I had taken a research-design course sometime in the past decade so I [...]

Small-group Gaming, Part 3: Use It or Lose It

Our impromptu two week vacation at the beginning of February did little for our teamwork. It seems like we need to be together to practice cooperating.

Or, really, do we? If we had a social network (or better used our existing Edmodo network) or virtual day set up, couldn’t student teams compete with [...]

Small-group Gaming, Part 2: Baby Mario Steps

This Monday we dedicated a station to analyzing our data from last week’s small-group gaming.

Students used a formula to determine each group’s live lost to levels won ratio.
Students analyzed the differences in observed and noted behaviors between the groups with the highest and lowest ratios.
Students analyzed their own behavior to see if it aligned more [...]

Small-group Gaming, Part 1: Rewarding Collaboration

Here’s a quick post on an imperfect start to using video games in the classroom for teaching the soft-skills necessary for collaboration in a manner (hopefully) authentic and relevant to students’ media experience.

Teams of 3-4 students played New Super Mario Bros. Wii at a classroom station.
Teams were asked to win the most levels possible with [...]