Using Games in the Classroom
With over 350 million copies downloaded worldwide, it's no wonder Among Us has become popular in the education realm. Educators have created engaging Google Slides to incorporate everyone's favorite cooperative game! Knowing this, I just had to try it in my classroom. I would like to say this game may not be appropriate for all levels, as it has an ESRB Rating of 10+, because of cartoon violence and in-chat messaging.
After being inspired by another NASEF Fellow, Angelique Giana (Edutopia Article), and her lesson on persuasive arguments in the classroom while using Among Us!, I thought I can do this in my SAT Prep Course! And of course, carving out time in my Exploration of Game Design course was a no-brainer. Using Ms. Gianas' slide show I talked about persuasive arguments and framed the game as a learning and practicing guide. For SAT Prep, we used SAT words instead of the common names for places in the game. The Med-Bay became the Infirmary, Weapons became the Armory, a corner in the walkway became a Juxtapoint.
Ideas for other Classes:
Spanish, French, or any Foreign Language Class - Introduce Colors in Espanol have players play while speaking only in Spanish or French or any other foreign language, create prompts and questions to type or speak out loud if virtual on Zoom.
EL Class - Engage your English language learners to create a safe space to practice asking questions for certain experiences, "Where is the cafeteria?" etc.
Computer Science: Build the game around the Imposter being a bug in a game. And the crewmates are the coders who need to fix the bug. Once the game is introduced and the map decided upon, students can draft pseudocode to communicate where the imposter has struck and then all communication in the game has to be written in the pseudocode, until the coders lose or the bug is fixed. Another fun practice is to have students create their own pseudocode for communicating in the app during gameplay. Students could collaboratively create a pseudocode list, to figure out how to ask simple questions, like locate(body) and locate(color) to ask where a character who had died was found.
CS: This could also include working out a UML chart for a character. Then dive into the characteristics of each student's player creation. Then play out the game for some in-class fun. Build mods in this CS Lesson by Jeffrey Wile, and have students practice coding!
The Plan
The game is played with 10 players at a time, so in large classes, student leaders will have to be chosen to create a lobby and share the code with students in their group. While in a remote learning setting, sending students into break-out rooms can help create a private discussion area while students play. You can have them chat in the game or un-mute and discuss who they think is the Imposter during the game.
In Hybrid online students can set up a lobby and play while in class students can do the same. If you have an off-number students in the class can play with those online as well to keep all engaged.
In-person you can break students into teams of 10 to play with a student leader.
Make sure all students agree on the stage settings and have downloaded the game on their mobile devices. If there is a lag between games, remember that some students will and should opt for the free version download on mobile platforms, which requires a video to play between each game.
Reflection
With using Among Us during a remote learning setting I had more participation than I could have ever asked for! Students were attending those days in record numbers and playing together and with me. The gameplay was engaging and gave us all a good laugh. It connected us and bonded us as a class in the virtual environment. Many times students would come in and ask if we could play again, so I would say it was a hit! It was just like Heads-Up 7-Up, from my elementary days!
