Flipping The Teacher'S Role: What To Teach When Using Game-Based Learning?

Access to quality education is essential for children's academic, occupational, social, and emotional outcomes. Yet globally, 121 million school-aged children are out of school. Many of these children live in countries affected by armed conflict, poverty, or instability. Additionally, host countries -taking in refugee children - require innovative solutions to increase enrolment and reduce burden on existing education systems. For this reason, War Child Holland and TNO have developed Can't Wait to Learn, a tablet-based programme that teaches mathematics and literacy competencies to children in line with the national curriculum through a serious-gaming approach. The game has been tested in an out-of-school setting without teachers, current studies will also focus on classroom situations. Taking the game into the classroom raises a number of questions. What part of the role of a teacher can never be replaced by a tablet? How will teachers integrate the game into their classrooms? What is the most effective delivery model? And to what extent can learning be self-paced in the classroom? In this paper, we will discuss the role and responsibilities of teachers in game-based learning. While game-based learning offers good opportunities for children to work at their own level, and progress at their own rate, it can also add to the burden of teachers when differences in mastery levels of children increase even more because of using the game. It is quite clear that this is a delicate balance. We will present various possible delivery models, the support teachers need to be willing and able to use the games in the classroom, and an overview of the teacher training. Preliminary findings on the actual implementation of Can't Wait to Learn in the classroom will be available by the end of 2017.