Computer Games: Increase Learning in an Interactive Multidisciplinary Environment

Our educational system is compartmentalized into various disciplines. Students learn to solve discipline specific problems rather than complex multidisciplinary problems. Commercially available computer games and simulators do not distinguish between academic disciplines. These games illustrate interactive whole systems, organize and integrate complex skills, and show how individual actions affect complex systems. Computer games and simulators enhance learning through visualization, experimentation, and creativity of play. Increased learning occurs by problem solving in a complex interactive multidisciplinary environment and by “seeing” causal relationships between individual actions and whole systems. The broader implications of using computer games in the classroom are for students to become more effective learners and thinkers enabling them to make connections across the curriculum. This article develops the ideas from the preliminary results of an ongoing experiment in a freshman engineering technology course at SUNY Farmingdale [1]. 1 The experiment measured an increase in learning using the computer game Sim City 2000.