At the start of an activity, students must discuss among their counterparts who will perform what
functions on the team. In doing so, they all must identify important strengths within themselves or their
fellow students. Students then need to organize the team’s roles and responsibilities based on those
strengths. When faced with additional challenges during the game, team members also need to work
together on recalibrating and overcoming new obstacles.
Classroom games reinforce social-emotional learning through education
Research shows that playing games in the classroom reinforces important components of social-
emotional learning like communication, listening, and empathy.
When solving issues, students need to communicate with one another about what they would like to
contribute to the activity or what they think the team should do. At the same time, they need to remain
aware of how the rest of the team feels about roles, decisions, progress, and more.
If one student is being particularly quiet, another might take note and decide to advocate for them to
the rest of the team. Or, when debating how to play a game, students might take into account how all
members of the team feel about the options before coming to a final decision.
