Pencil and Paper Games Teach More Than You Think

Over the years that I was a teacher in my local school system I would use games and puzzles in the classroom. Often such materials were used to keep students busy while others finished a test or quiz and this certainly worked, but I also began to see other values in the use of games in the classroom. One game many of played in our childhood was the pencil and paper version of "battleships", "connect the dots", "tic-tac-toe", "hangman" etc.

One day as I was teaching a computer class, I looked at a spreadsheet on the monitor and I though about how it reminded me of the game of battleships. I then created a paper version of battleships that I could use in the classroom and was surprised that many children did not know how to play the game. Some had the "electronic" version, but did not realize that it could be played in the paper format and that they could change the game in ways that they wanted to play. Across the top of a typical battleship paper version you would have A...B...C...D etc. and down the side you would have the 1...2...3...4...etc. Students must locate locations on the grid by using letters and numbers and they must collect data as they play. They record the hits and the misses and can then be more effective on their following turns. This game then provides essentially similar skills with reference to the use of spreadsheets.

In addition scientists use grids in many types of studies. If a biologist is looking at a colony of bacteria and need to make an estimate of the total bacteria in the culture, you can be quite certain they are not going to count individually millions of bacteria. Instead they can view the bacteria through a microscope that has grid lines and then can count the number in randomly selected grid locations. Because these grids cells are extremely small, the bacteria count is low, but if the data is collected properly it can then be used to get a reasonable estimate of the total bacteria in a given culture.

When anthropologists dig in an area they often divide the area into grid locations. Then they apply a randomized selection process to select areas to dig. While they may also select areas that they have strong feelings will be of interest, they also know that random grid selection removes personal bias from the process. Imagine if you had 10 workers in an area the was over a mile square. Where would these workers dig if they were allowed to pick their own spots in the grid zones. Well, if I was allowed to select a location, it might be close to home base near a large shaded tree, but not too close to make it difficult to dig. Random selection of grid locations is more scientific.

Students need to know that playing a game like battleships is also getting them an initial understanding of grid locations. We can change the game and take out the "military" aspect of the game. I made another version of the game in which it had different types of bacteria. There were rod shaped bacteria, spiral shaped bacteria, and single cell bacteria on the sheet. The game was called "Cure The Disease". Students placed germs on the sheet in a way that was similar to "battleships" and as they "hit" the bacteria with their calls of locations they were curing the disease that had infected the grid. Once they had destroyed all the bacteria they were "cured". By modification of the "battleship" game I was able to use the new game in biology class and at the same time teach about different kinds of bacteria and disease.

It should be obvious that the game could be modified to fit many other subjects, it only takes creativity. As teachers it is up to us to expand the game concept to a world application. I have participated in many types of research studies and assignments that use techniques like grids. One that comes to mind is when in one of my graduate biology classes we gathered insect samples from an open area of grass, an area at the edge of the grass and forest, and just inside the forest area. This is a three grid area. As you might expect there are different insects in each zone and a greater variety in the zone between the grass and forest.

I used the game of Tic-Tac-Toe to create a computer program to play the game. This can teach logical thinking. I have typed computer programs into computers to play hangman and connect the dots and these teach a great deal about computer programming. Games are also tools to teach individuals to interact with others in appropriate ways. There is a fine line that we do need to consider when we use such games. We should not use them to simply fill time and not too often and when we do use them we need to use the opportunity to teach the larger concepts they can illustrate.