Civilization Project - Step 1

I've posted a couple of times about using the off-the-shelf game Civilization as a teaching tool in World History. This year, I'm starting a year-long co-teaching project with Mr. Hawkins, a World History teacher who has been excited about using the game ever since I presented the idea a couple of years ago.

Based on my observations from a pilot last year with a World Geography class, I chose to use Civilization IV, the latest incarnation in the game series. It has the most appeal visually for students, and it incorporates some other simulation elements that don't exist in earlier versions (such as the concepts of religion and cultural borders/influence).

Our school schedule incorporates two 90-minute block period days - even periods on Wednesdays, odd periods on Thursdays - so we decided to use the last 40-45 minutes of those block days to play the game. (The same schedule was used last year, and Mr. Hawkins felt that the latter parts of block periods were underused in Social Studies.)

We started the lesson by playing the game as an entire class. Because most of the students were unfamiliar with the game (and this type of game, known as turn-based strategy), we are planning on spending several weeks with a single civilization for the whole class. I started Wednesday and Thursday playing through only two or three turns, because at each step, game play elements had to be explained - what the map shows and represents, what each of the icons are, what information is presented to the player, etc. In the course of making choices in the game, Mr. Hawkins would also chime in with questions about ancient history concepts already talked about in class, and why the class was choosing an action.

I recognize that Civilization is neither intended nor suited to teach actual World History - while the game contains concepts and structures (military units available only to certain civilizations, technological advancement, World Wonders) that do exist in history, the fact that these structures can come into play at various different times de-emphasizes their values as facts and instead focuses on their values as concepts - how certain technogies might affect a civilization on a larger scale. The game supports concepts, not details.

At least, that's our working model, and why we're using the game. We're using the game to see how it reinforces students' conceptual historical knowledge. One challenge I expect we'll face is finding the best implementation of the game in class to support students learning or reinforcing their conceptual knowledge.

Stay tuned...

Posted in: Civilization, games, pedagogy, software, teaching