Gee, James Paul, What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Litetracy, Palgrave McMillian Press, 2007

 

     Aaaand... here's the one that started it all out. If you're getting into using games and education, this is where you should start. In it Dr. Gee takes ideas from educational theory and sees how they are very successfully executed in video games. There's a gap between Educational Theory and Educational Practice, and he speculates on how we can take the successful practices of video games and turn them into successful practice in the classroom. 

 

Squire, Kurt Video Games and Learning: Teaching and Participatory Culture in the Digital Age, Teachers College Press, 2011

 

   On this list I'd place this book as the second must-read after Gee, above. Kurt has done a lot of good work in using games to facilitate learning, and in this book he shares his experiences and reflections on the process. One example is his discussion of running an after-school program in which students played Civ 3. He also discusses several games he designed (with help, of course) and how it went. What struck me as most interesting was his final chapter on the future of games in education where (spoiler alert!) he believes that the current educational system, looking for rigid algorithms that 'scale up' to national programs, will not facilitate the future of game-based learning. Instead, he sees the future of game based learning (and maybe educational progress period?) to lie with libraries, community groups, etc.-- places outside the traditional, highly regulated educational industry we have today. 

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Farber, Matthew Gamify Your Classroom: A Field Guide to Game-Based Learning, part of the 'New Literacies and Digital Epistimologies" series, published by Peter Lang Publishing, Inc. 2015

 

      This is a very practical guide to designing gamified lesson plans or even turning the overall class experience into a game. Although I enjoy designing educational games to use in my class, the thought of going all-out in this way fills my stomach with butterflies. I'm sure this would be a very useful guide if you are braver than me!

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Sheldon, Lee, The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game, Course Technology PTR (Cengage Learning), 2012

 

   If reading Farber above put butterflies in my stomach, this book gave me night sweats! Lee Sheldon was a professional game designer. When hired on by Indiana University to teach game design, he decided to design his whole course structure like a game (quests, etc.) For example, your final letter grade depended on how many experience points you earned by the end of the semester. This is a must-read if you're interested in actually designing your course to be something like a quest-based, leveling-up experience. A great book, I just don't have the chutzpa to carry it off!

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Finseth, Carly Teach Like a Gamer, McFarland & Co. Publishers, Inc., 2018

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True story-- I came across this book at a kisok in the exhibit hall in GenCon 2018 right after giving a Trade Day talk--coincidentally-- of the same name! I had to get it. I think I would best describe it as (Dr?) Finseth's attempt to start cashing out the promises observed by James Paul Gee in his book described above. it's an attempt to look at what works in learning with respect to role-playing games (particularly MMORPG's) and how to re-tool it for the classroom (with a broad enough understanding of 'the classroom'). A good read on its own, but reading Gee's book first would give more context, I think. 

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Capaldi, Mindi, ed. Teaching Mathematics through Games MAA/AMS Publishers, 2021

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Great book, can't recommend it enough for math education, the fact that I wrote one of the chapters has absolutely no influence on my opinion of this book! Each of the chapters details a way that either an existing game (e.g. Catan, Arkham Horror CCG) can be used to teach mathematical concepts in the classroom or a game has been specificaly created (e.g. Function Battleship) to teach topics in the classroom. Each leson plan was selected for having been vetted for having been successfully used in the classroom for years, and includes tips and instructions about how to use it as well as a discussion of common struggles and pitfalls and how to overcome them.