By John Golden, Posted August 29, 2014 – 

I like to play games. Almost any type of game. I also like to play math. Left to my own devices, I’ll work with good problems from James Tanton, the Futility Closet, or Don Steward or try to make something interesting in GeoGebra. (GeoGebra is a free, open source, dynamic mathematics software program.) Or I will read about good math that other people are doing.

If you’ve known enough mathematicians, you may have noticed that this isn’t unusual. I’m not sure if a love of games and puzzles among mathematicians exceeds a love of music among mathematicians, but both are strong and intersect. Math in play is also a way of teaching mathematics. I think that as a metaphor, it best describes how I want to teach math.

Of course, games in education is a hot topic now. People talk about or implement gamification, grafting game rules, rewards, or structure into learning. The Math-Twitter-Blog-o-Sphere (MTBoS) has a wide variety of general purpose or review games that can be adapted to many different content areas. I try to keep an up to date index of many of these at my blog, such as trashketball, the block game, and Taboo game variants. (Several people collaboratively made ageometry block game recently.)

I am constantly seeking ways to get my students thinking about math as a verb. It is aboutdoing, not just about having right answers or the end product. Games help set the culture I want to develop: Teaching students that multiple approaches and strategies are valued; trying is safe; and conversations about why, how, and discovery are the goals. MTMS has featured some good games over the years, allowing students to explore, use, or represent the math content that the games teach:

• Polygon Capture by William Carroll. (Here’s my version.)
  
• Rational number concentration by Elizabeth S. Sweeney and Robert J. Quinn. (Concentration and rummy are great connection structures for games.)
  
• Decimal reasoning games from Nesrin Cengiz and Margaret Rathouz. (Focusing on supportive representation: A great way to make a math game.)
  
• Contexts for Nim by Charles Reeves and Rosemarie Reeves Gleichowski. (Nim is an all-time classic reasoning game, ripe for variations.)
  
• Michael Maida and Paula Maida wrote about using Blokus to encourage problem solving. (Here are more commercial games that are good for math class.)

I like many of the games at Illuminations and Calculation Nation; several have free app versions as well (iOS and Android). My all-time favorite, the Product Game, is on the Illuminations site. What makes this game great? It is fun. An enormous amount of strategy is involved, so that even if students have the content, they are still engaged in playing.

Any attempt to design a game that uses math for structure will have the benefit of getting students to play with the ideas involved. With this idea in mind, I designed Decimal Pickle (a decimal comparison) and Four Corners (an introduction to graphing). I gravitate toward strategy games, so I’ve had to intentionally try to develop more collaborative or creative games, such asBurger Time (decimal modeling) and Power Up (exponents). Usually I launch a game by playing against the whole class, then I review the rules by having students explain them, before breaking the class into teams. Team vs. team almost always results in better mathematical conversations. To conclude the game, we regroup, share stories of game play, recount what they noticed, and point out any strategies developed.

I’ve noticed, however, that some of my satisfaction in making or adapting a game is that the design process is itself about doing mathematics. Varying conditions, considering alternatives, play testing, and collecting data on the results are mathematical practices. I am now trying to involve students more in the game design process: talking about process and decisions, getting suggestions for improving games, modifying games themselves and ultimately designing their own.

Here’s to more game playing in your class! Pull out your tub of dice and get rolling.

John Golden, @mathhombre, is a member of the department of mathematics at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. He teaches math and elementary and secondary teacher preparation courses. At mathhombre.blogspot.com, he blogs about math games, geometry and GeoGebra, lesson ideas, and teacher prep.