The GAME of the Future

The idea behind the GAME plan - setting a learning goal, taking action to achieve it, monitoring and adjusting one’s progress, and evaluating and extending one’s learning - is one which could benefit students immensely as they develop into self-directed learners. The GAME plan creates a framework for independent learning which can serve any number of learning goals and its simple steps could continue to serve students as they become life-long learners.

In the classroom, I can imagine instructing students in the GAME plan as they set personal goals within one of the NETS-S skill areas. Working withing the skill area of demonstrating creativity and innovation, for example, students could explore the specific learning goals listed in the NETS-S and choose one they would like to develop in a GAME plan. This would give us, as a class, the common starting place of creativity and innovation, yet allow each student to explore and deepen their skills according to their own needs and interests. We would also have a common ending place, as each student could carry their new knowledge and experience back into the classroom for others to benefit from during the extension and evaluation phase. Using a GAME plan structure in class would also give me, as the teacher, an excellent opportunity to model the process and expose myself as a passionate learner, as I work along side the students to meet my own GAME plan learning goals.