While economics and personal finance concepts can be challenging for K-12 students to grasp, educator Megan Kirts discovered that playing games can be an effective way to help students make the connection.
Kirts shared several tips and examples of econ related games during her session “Low-Tech Games for High Impact Learning” at this summer’s Master of Arts in Economics and Entrepreneurship for Educators (MAEEE) program, run by the University of Delaware’s Center for Economic Education and Entrepreneurship in the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics. The goal of the session was to provide teachers with games that they could take back to their classrooms in the fall to help students learn economic concepts.
The unique MAEEE program properly outfits teachers so that they can inspire students to become effective participants in the economy, successful entrepreneurs, responsible consumers and wise investors. It boasts over 500 graduates who stem from 39 states, D.C., and 15 countries.
Kirts, a 2021 MAEEE alumnus, is currently director of educator programs for Econiful and for the University of Arizona Office of Economic Education, after serving as a high school teacher for 17 years in the Tucson area.
Defining low-tech games as using cards or dice and not computers or tablets, Kirts described three existing games that she modified during the first half of the presentation, while the second half focused on games she had created.
Kirts noted that the positives of incorporating games include keeping students more engaged, working together and collaborating, which is good for their social skills and increases the energy in the classroom.
“If (the students) are enjoying themselves, we’re hoping that translates into enthusiasm for the subject,” Kirts said.
Games also enhance learning as they require analysis, critical thinking and active participation, which result in higher rates of retention and increased motivation, she noted.
The participants, approximately 30 MAEEE and state K-12 teachers, also discussed the drawbacks: the amount of prep time for teachers to find or create them, the additional supplies needed, the materials preparation, and the decrease of actual instruction during the class time.
“So my hope today is that I can lower at least one of these costs by sharing games that I’ve already created, so you don’t have to create several different games for your classroom,” Kirts said.
She shared three strategies for implementing games: using an existing economics or personal finance game, modifying a non-econ game, and creating an original game to support learning goals.
An example of modifying a non-econ game that Kirts shared was a memory card matching game which focused on economic vocabulary terms. Half of the cards feature an icon of an economic term, while the other half feature the definitions of those terms and must be matched to the icon cards.
Another was Occupational Uno, which included cards featuring occupations, their median annual wages and educational requirements listed by symbols that students can match.
“Students are going to learn about a variety of different occupations, they’re going to see the median annual wage, and start to think about why wages and educational requirements are different for various occupations,” Kirts explained.
A third game featured was Econo-Word, a macroeconomics review game inspired by Taboo. Students are divided into groups and try to get their classmates to guess the Econo-Word, one of 36 macroeconomic concepts, without using any of the four related forbidden words on the card.
“So they have to find creative ways to explain the economic concept, which means that they have to know it pretty well to find a workaround,” Kirts said.
She also described a game called Retrieval Rally in which students rate their confidence level on economics concepts prior to the game, and then rate themselves again following the game.
The participants then broke into small groups to play the games amongst themselves and made their own suggestions for improvements.
Kirts then shared three games she had created to demonstrate how creating an original game can align with learning goals and be a fun way to motivate students:
- Credit Score Challenge, in which students are introduced to basic credit score vocabulary and discover factors that influence a consumer’s score. Students take turns drawing impact cards, to learn how an action, such as not making a late payment in five years, would affect a person’s score.
- Fiscal Policy Challenge, featured students playing a board game to learn about when fiscal policy is typically deployed, as well as its tools and impact.
- Market Mayhem, a card game that helps students solidify their understanding of product markets, was the final original game that was highlighted. Each of the cards features a scenario and a product market that included a problem such as missing or transposed labels or shift arrows, incorrect shifts and misplaced price controls. The teams of students then need to evaluate the scenario and describe its error.
Following the presentation, teachers had time to either modify an existing game that was presented or begin thinking about creating their own original game.
The session was the first of two presented by Kirts, who also spoke on “Teach Smarter, Not Harder: Resources for Powerful Teaching in Economics.” Fellow MAEEE alum Brett Burkey, Director of Education for the Florida Council on Economic Education, also spoke during the summer program, as he delivered a presentation entitled “Election Economics.”
To continue exploring the intersection of economics and politics, Delaware teachers are invited to join our upcoming professional learning session on September 17th. This event will provide a collection of ready-to-use lessons designed to enhance students’ understanding of how economic principles intersect with political processes, empowering them to become more informed citizens.
The four-week MAEEE program held in the FinTech Innovation Hub ran from June 24 through July 19 and followed six weeks of online learning. UD Professor of Economics Jim Butkiewicz and Lerner Adjunct Faculty and alumnus Andrew Hill led the online sessions and continued instruction in-person during the on-campus sessions.
In addition to instruction provided by Butkiewicz and Hill, Delaware teachers were invited to attend MAEEE guest presentations, the goal of which was to receive valuable professional learning while also learning more about the MAEEE degree program.