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You are here: Home / Archives for cooperative play

What Are Cooperative Games and Why Are They Good for Bullying Prevention?

March 20, 2017 by Suzanne Lyons

 

cooperative games
Cooperative Games are games based on cooperation not competition

What Is a Cooperative Game?

Have you heard about cooperative games? Cooperative games are based on cooperation rather than competition. There are cooperative games of all kinds for all ages and settings. They range from board games to circle games to PE games to electronic games and more. They are all based on the same principle:  It’s as much fun—well maybe more fun—to play with each other than against each other!

In a cooperative game, players work together to win. The fun comes from the camaraderie and challenge of the game—not from being the “best” player left standing when everyone else is eliminated. In a cooperative game, no player is ever eliminated. What is eliminated is fear of failure and the incentive to beat others.

While competitive games emphasize individual achievement (being “better” than others), cooperative games emphasize the fun, enjoyment, and productivity that can be achieved by working together.  A well-designed cooperative game assures that players will experience the heart-felt happiness that comes from being part of an inclusive community.

Pro-Social Skills and Cooperative Games

Cooperative games are structured so that players must use pro-social skills such as sharing, encouraging, listening, and participating in order to win.

cooperative game in a circle
Cooperative games come in many formats from circle games to board games to PE games

The major pro-social skill that is practiced in a cooperative game is, of course, cooperation. Because you need to work together to win in a cooperative game, players discover through their own sensory experience that cooperating makes us more productive. That is, cooperative play demonstrates in a very concrete way that “we’re better together”, that “many hands make like work” and that “many heads are better than one.”

Cooperative Games in Education

Do cooperative games have a role in education? It is easy to see that they do. As described above, cooperative games motivate players to want to cooperate and they also teach the cooperative skills needed to do it. The ability to cooperate has manifold applications in education.

Prep for Cooperative Learning  Cooperative games prepare kids to take part in cooperative learning strategies and collaborative project-based learning because they give kids practice working and playing together.

Academic Subjects and Cooperative Games  Cooperative games are of course playful and fun. Thus they tap the power of play in learning. The benefits of play in learning are well-documented. Play is especially crucial for learning in young children. Even Plato said over two thousand years ago: “Do not keep children to their studies by compulsion but by play.” More and more educational cooperative games are being developed for classroom learning, and the good ones combine the teaching power of both play and collaboration. So with educational cooperative games, students can learn language, math, science or other academic content at the same time that they practice cooperating. (See CooperativeGames.com for many free cooperative games, including cooperative games that teach academic subjects. Free classroom-ready games as well as games for purchase. Also you will find more cooperative games that teach academic subjects in The Cooperative Games Bullying Prevention Program by Suzanne Lyons.)

Social-and-Emotional Learning  According to Maurice Elias, director of Rutgers University’s Social and Emotional Learning Lab, SEL is the process through which we learn to recognize and manage emotions, care about others, make good decisions, behave ethically an responsibly, and avoid negative behaviors. Teachers are looking for tools that teach social-and-emotional competence. Clearly, games that teach children how and why to get along together impart the social-and-emotional competencies Elias has identified.

Besides preparing students for cooperative learning, teaching academic subjects, and building social-and-emotional skills, cooperative games relate to other areas of education, from sustainability to special education. Indeed the applications are too many to enumerate in a single blog post! Check CooperativeGames.com for more discussion and resources related to all of the benefits and purposes of cooperative games in education https://cooperativegames.com/. However, we cannot end this introduction to cooperative games in education without giving at least a brief description of how they can prevent bullying. Bullying prevention is indeed the “killer app” for cooperative games.

Cooperative Games, School Climate, and Bullying

Bullying is a cruel torment and is all too common. It produces acute misery in the short term as well as aching wounds that can last a lifetime. Kids who are victims of bullying are five times more likely to be depressed compared to their peers. Kids who bully are also at high risk for serious negative consequences including social isolation, poor academic performance and later criminal behavior.

prevent bullying with cooperative games
Cooperative Games to Prevent Bullying

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has responded to the bullying crisis through its website StopBullying.gov, which is an extensive information portal for teachers and the public at large. The section Prevent Bullying offers a handful of guidelines to stop bullying before it starts.  The guidelines for bullying prevention—as opposed to responding to bullying once it has occurred–relate to building a positive school climate.

What is a positive school climate? According to StopBullying.gov:

A positive school climate is a general atmosphere where students feel safe and a sense of belonging.

Cooperative games are inclusive by their very nature. Everyone belongs.  No one is ever eliminated. If you need help when it is your turn, other players are there to support you. This feels psychologically safe. As well as safety, there is a sense of belonging too because players win or lose as a group. Working toward a common goal puts everyone on the same team.

Research on cooperative games and bullying
April Bay and Suzanne Lyons discussing April’s study on cooperative games and aggression in young children. Suzanne’s book is based on April’s research.

And there’s more! What can really make you feel unsafe and like you don’t belong? When others are mean and aggressive to you! Can cooperative games address even this problem—the problem of aggression? There is research that shows that playing cooperative games indeed reduces aggression. The consequences of this are profound and far-reaching and indeed pertain to all ages. The most specific research that shows cooperative games reduce aggression relates to young children however. A study by April Bay et. al. at the University of Nevada, Reno tested the effects of specific cooperative games on aggression in young children in 1994. Both during the games and afterward, children who played particular well-designed cooperative games exhibited more pro-social behavior (including sharing, showing affection, and helping one another) and less aggressive behavior (including hitting, kicking, and name-calling).

Teaching manual for cooperative games and bullying prevention
A pioneering approach to bullying prevention: Cooperative Games

Thus, good cooperative games are a powerful means with which a teacher, parent or other adult who works with children can nurture a positive school climate and thus prevent bullying!

This is a novel approach. For all its common sense appeal and the research backing it up, cooperative games have not been applied to the bullying problem as yet. It’s a simple method, inexpensive, and with many side benefits. If this approach appeals to you, know that when you give it a try you are one of the early adopters. You’re bringing light into the dark world of bullying with the positive power of cooperation, kindness, and joy.

Contact Suzanne Lyons M.A. M.A. for webinars and workshops on cooperative games in education.  Buy The Cooperative Games Bullying Prevention Program at CooperativeGames.com, on Amazon, and ibooks.

 

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: bullying prevention, cooperative games, cooperative play, preschool education, Suzanne Lyons

Successful Cooperative Games Booth at a Local Holiday Fair!

December 27, 2016 by Suzanne Lyons

vic3                Image result for victorian christmas nevada city 2016

2016 is the first year that we hosted a booth selling cooperative board games at “Victorian Christmas”, our local holiday fair. This is Nevada City, California—a historic Gold Rush town that  comes alive over the holidays. Locals and tourists love the cheerful mood and appreciate the story-book atmosphere. Even if you are not given to sentimentality throughout the year it is hard to resist the charm of this event, with its horse-drawn carriage, chestnuts roasting, carolers, crafters-a-plenty in their pop-up store-fronts and, in many years, a bit of snow to frost the streets in glistening white. Forget your cares, it’s the holidays!

So, how was a booth selling cooperative board games received? Truly our CooperativeGames.com booth was super popular! It exceeded expectations. I (Suzanne Lyons, founder CooperativeGames.com) have been selling cooperative games through CooperativeGames.com since 2009. During that time, I have seen a big increase in the degree to which people are familiar with cooperative games, or at least are receptive to the concept. Seven years ago, cooperative games were a very esoteric genre, sometimes regarded with skepticism, as in “What a weird idea.”

But at the holiday street fair this year, it was heartening to see how many people  know what cooperative games are, and have  played them, and are robust fans. There’s a lot of support for the whole idea of playing together not against each other. This year in 2016 many of us are looking for ways to bridge the gaps that divide us. It’s easy to see that cooperative games are a timely and effective method for getting there. And painless medicine to boot!

Besides running my own booth at our local holiday fair, in 2016 I helped The Lansing Peace Education Center with their own holiday fundraiser. They reported  success and satisfaction, as described in their testimonial below. To like-minded organizations: This is an invitation. If you are interested in running a cooperative games table at your local fundraising event, please contact me, Suzanne Lyons, at CooperativeGames.com. The best way to reach me is by email at Suzanne@CooperativeGames.com. As a curator of the best cooperative games for all ages and settings, my goal is to spread knowledge about cooperative play and cooperative games, and to help organizations that serve the common good tap the magic of cooperative play too.

We at the Greater Lansing (Michigan) Peace Education Center organized a table of cooperative games for our annual Alternative Holiday Sale. Thanks to Suzanne Lyons of Cooperativegames.com for helping us pull together a selection of delightful games for all ages. It was eye-opening to many people that such games exist! We were so pleased to be able to get the word out and help foster more fun, friendly game-playing in many homes and schools. Having a few copies of Suzanne’s book was an added bonus that gave us a chance to talk about the benefits of teaching cooperative play.


 

 

 

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: cooperative games, cooperative play, victorian christmas

The Cooperative Games Blog: The Green Team

October 8, 2015 by Suzanne Lyons

The Cooperation Chronicles Episode 1: The Green Team

People sometimes ask: Why play cooperative games? blob tagOne answer is that cooperative games teach cooperation. But then, what’s so great about cooperation?

Today we’re launching a blog series called The Cooperation Chronicles to answer that question. Cooperation is a rather unsung virtue in the culture these days. Rather than peaceful and productive cooperation, we often glorify competition with its dramatic contests, winners and losers, ups and downs, and inherent adrenaline rush. Competition is telegenic; cooperation less so. So in this little blog series, The Cooperation Chronicles, we are going to profile true stories of human cooperation. These stories are meant to warm the heart and remind us all of the wonders of working and playing together.

high res for patty rasta sunToday’s Cooperation Chronicle profiles The Green Team, four middle-school girls in Coral Gables,Florida and the movement they started at their school to save energy. Their initiative was successful in the extreme with win-win effects all over the place for everyone.

Maddi Cowen, Larissa Weinstein, Nicole Matinez, and Melissa Quintana were alarmed about sea level rise in their region of Florida due to climate change. They wondered if there was anything they could do. The girls got serious about working with one another and with other people in their school and community toward a common goal. The Green Team, a school-based organization whose mission was to mitigate climate change by reducing energy consumption at the school level, was born.

Sea-level rise is a severe threat to Miami. As Maddi herself states, the economic losses projected to occur in Miami due to sea-level rise are greater than losses at any other coastal city in the world.

The Green Team started by going around from homeroom to homeroom gathering interested students to do small things to save energy such as turning off lights and computers when not in use. Soon, school officials were working with the kids and bigger steps were taken. p 59 flow_chart_of_school_energy_savingAir conditioners got switched off in favor of opening doors, a recycling program was launched, and the school roof was even painted white. The school formed a collaboration with a local non-profit Dream In Green, which supplied resources and assistance for the school-wide energy-saving campaign. Again quoting Maddie, “We didn’t just do this ourselves. We built an entire network with faculty, administration, students and other members of the community…Going green is a win-win situation for everybody” Principal Libby Gonzales commented on the degree of community mindedness when she said “Not only are we making a change at the school level, but we are trying to make a change city-wide, nation-wide, world-wide.” To date, the Green Team initiative has saved over $50,000 for George Washington Carver Middle School in Coral Gables Florida by reducing resource consumption. More importantly, they have contributed to the overall global shift toward sustainability.

This is a story of climate change, but not just in the sense of mitigating global warming. It’s also a happy tale about climate change in the sense of changing school climate, for the Green Team project fostered a positive sense of community within the school, replacing fear, apathy, and separation with unity and mutual appreciation.

You can watch a free video of this story, called Dreaming In Green, at the Young Voices for the Planet website. Here is the link http://www.youngvoicesonclimatechange.com/movie_dreaming.php

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The Cooperative Games blog is the random musings of a cooperative games aficionado,
educator, and proponent of the cultural shift toward we not just me. I’m Suzanne Lyons, founder of CooperativeGames.com. Come on in, pull up a chair, and let’s chat!

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Teachers: Note that there is a free Dreaming In Green curriculum that you can use in conjunction with the video of this story. Check it out! Again go to:  http://www.youngvoicesonclimatechange.com/movie_dreaming.php  Also, I myself co-authored a climate-change teaching manual with Lynne Cherry, producer of the Young Voices for the Planet films and Juliana Texley PhD, current President of the NSTA. Our book is called Empowering Young Voices for the Planet, published in 2014 by Corwin Press. It’s full of win-win stories of kids working together to help the environment, as well as hands-on activities for your students that support those stories.

 

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: cooperation, cooperative games, cooperative games for kids, cooperative play

Cooperative Games with Blocks

December 8, 2014 by Suzanne Lyons

Do you remember playing with blocks as a wee one?

blocks for cooperative play
Blocks for Cooperative Play

I remember many peaceful hours spent playing with them. I loved blocks because they facilitate imaginary play and physical play too. It’s fun to practice eye hand coordination, explore spatial relations, and use small motor skills at the same time you build crazy castles, tall towers and all manner of imaginary things. I’m sure blocks must help kids develop mechanical skills too. Blocks are fun for mixed-age play since older children and adults love them just as much as very young children do. Blocks are a noncompetitive toy. Children can play individually with blocks or cooperatively by building structures together. The simplest cooperative game  with blocks I know of is a construction game. It goes like this…it’s a classic and always SO FUN! Just build the highest vertical tower you can, taking turns. Eventually the tower will crash! But it’s fun building it together, encouraging one another and offering helpful suggestions as in all cooperative games. Now here is the serious part. Gwen Dewar PhD at ParentingScience.com reports a study on using cooperative play with blocks to help autistic kids. Playing together cooperatively with blocks helped the autistic kids make more social language improvements than being directly coached in the social use of language. See http://www.parentingscience.com/toy-blocks.html . Are you psyched about blocks and looking for a good set? I sell blocks at CooperativeGames.com since they are such a great and versatile noncompetitive toy. Click here to shop  https://cooperativegames.com/ I chose the Green Toys brand since Green Toys products are all made from recycled milk jugs in the USA. They are safe for kids and good for the environment, sturdy, and easy for little hands to manipulate. In honor of this blog on #cooperative games with blocks, and in honor of the holidays, Green Toys blocks are now the Deal of the Day at CooperativeGames.com at a whopping 40% off the regular price! Please share with parents and teachers, especially those who work with autistic kids. Thanks and Enjoy! From Suzanne Lyons at CooperativeGames.com.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: cooperative games, cooperative play, cooperative play with blocks

Cooperative Games Teach Cooperation. But What’s So Great About Cooperation?

December 2, 2014 by Suzanne Lyons

Hi Conscious Cooperators! Suzanne Lyons here, doing my bit to help usher in a new era of peace and sustainable common sense in these troubled times. CooperativeGames.com is my contribution, however humble, to the CHANGE that is coming and needs to come. I am a science educator by training, and a science textbook author. Pearson publishes my textbook, Conceptual Integrated Science, which is sold around the world. Yay but not enough. Education, I now see, is more urgent than cognitive expansion. We are the problem and we are the solution as far as the Earth and our own destiny on it goes. 2 dwight copy_edited-1What the world needs now is love sweet love. But if we can’t quite get there, what we need AT LEAST is the ability to work together toward the common good. That’s called enlightened self-interest and it’s essentially cooperation. As President Eisenhower once said: “Though force can protect in an emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration, and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace.” Let’s break it down. Why is cooperation so vital in life? What are its specific benefits? And why should we be learning how to cooperate through play with cooperative games?

Cooperation is essential because it helps solve problems. As we say, “two heads are better than one”. Cooperation brings the skills and talents of multiple stake holders to bear on any given situation. Cooperation makes it more efficient to get work done too. Many jobs are so big that they can only be accomplished through group effort. As we say, “many hands make light work”.

Cooperation is essential because it promotes healthy relationships. When we cooperate, we share, and as we know “sharing is caring”.”  Cooperating and sharing elicit emotions of appreciation, gratitude, and trust as we help one another. These positive emotions underlie social bonding and healthy relationships.

Cooperation is also important because it’s the foundation of equity. Cooperation, in the sense we are talking about here, involves decision-making based on mutual respect and participation. It’s different than obedience. It’s motivated by the desire to listen to one another, to be fair and get along. Cooperation is the means by which equitable social arrangements can be forged and maintained.

If cooperation is of great value, and if cooperative games can teach cooperation through the powerful medium of play, then surely cooperative games are a beneficial teaching tool for our times. Hmmm…competition reinforces the us-versus-them mindset yet cooperation brings about peace. Maybe it’s time to rethink the commonplace idea that competition is natural and necessary. Maybe it’s time to give cooperation-and cooperative play-a chance.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: cooperation and peace, cooperative games, cooperative play

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