In the theoretical part of this assignment, we presented the concept of play, its impact on child’s development, and its connection with class lessons. The play that unfolds during class lessons is called a didactic play, because it also includes the goals that students are supposed to achieve with it. We later presented several types of didactic games, their functions and advantages compared to classical forms of teaching. We did not forget to mention the role of the teacher in didactic play. Considering technology is increasingly present in our lives, we could also not overlook a computer didactic play that is slowly penetrating into class lessons and teaching. We wanted to check whether didactic play is effective enough to achieve knowledge, which is why we connected it with assessing imposed goals and knowledge. We defined the types and forms of checking and assessing knowledge, the measurement characteristics and the taxonomy of knowledge, with which we determine the level of students’ knowledge. We have highlighted particularly Bloom's and Gagney's taxonomy of knowledge, the latter being used mainly in determining knowledge in mathematics lessons. We also defined the mathematics curriculum for the 1st grade of primary school and the relevant operational objectives. In the practical part, we presented didactic games that we used to test mathematics knowledge. We also presented which knowledge, according to Gagney's taxonomy, is being tested by an individual didactic game.
In the empirical part, we determined how reliable didactic games are regarding testing knowledge in mathematics at the beginning of the 2nd grade. We checked the reliability of didactic games in testing knowledge and achieving the goals from the curriculum in an individual student. We also found out which contents in the curriculum are more suitable for inclusion of didactic games and which contents show us the most reliable data on the student's knowledge. In the empirical part, we also checked whether didactic games are reliable in testing knowledge at different taxonomic levels.
The results of the research have shown that there are no significant differences in achieving the goals, depending on whether we check them with a written test of knowledge or didactic games. Moreover, some of the results in didactic games showed even better results than written tests. Didactic games can be used for various mathematical contents, which are included in the curriculum, but it is important to pay attention to the design and implementation of the games. Our testing included mostly basic and conceptual knowledge, but we can also use didactic games to check knowledge at other taxonomic levels. Despite the fact that there were only minor differences in the assessment of knowledge through a written test and didactic games, we know with certainty that didactic games have their advantages, which is why teachers should use them in class lessons.
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