Playing accompanies the child from birth through the periods of his development. Every child feels the need to play. Despite the fact that playing is primarily a spontaneous activity that has no purpose, goal or expected results, it is increasingly included in lessons as it enables effective forms of learning. Didactic playing is a teaching method in which students learn through play without being aware of the learning objectives. Teachers should provide students with a stimulating learning environment with a wide variety of options and approaches for learning content and connecting and using knowledge and skills in problem solving. During group work, they develop the ability to communicate among participants and, in the teacher-student relationship, the ability to form opinions and analyse materials and synthesize results. All these aspects of modern teaching can also be introduced into the classroom by using a didactic game. The didactic game challenges students, so they are fully involved, attentive, and learning is effective and interesting. That is why the acquired knowledge is long-term. Learning through didactic games has a motivating effect and enables a different experience of dealing with new learning material, consolidating or checking knowledge.
For the purpose of the master's thesis, we created three didactic games about water and the water cycle in the 5th grade of primary school. We were interested in the progress in the knowledge of students, who studied the learning material with didactic games, compared to students, who studied the learning material with experimental work. We were also interested in how students evaluate their knowledge and well-being during the implementation of both active teaching methods. In addition to students, we also included female teachers in the research and asked them how they evaluated the designed didactic games.
In the research participated 87 5th grade pupils from two elementary schools and three classroom teachers. The data were collected through knowledge tests (pre- and post-tests), student questionnaires and interviews with teachers. The pre-tests were taken one week before the scheduled lessons, and the post-tests and questionnaires were taken immediately after the lessons. In all classes, lessons lasted three hours, and the fourth lesson was dedicated to solving the post-test and filling out the survey questionnaire. In three departments of the 5th grade, lessons were conducted with didactic games, and in the other three departments of the 5th grade with experimental work. In all classes, the work took place in groups.
We found that the students, who learned the learning content with didactic games, showed a higher progress in knowledge, and they also rated their knowledge and well-being during the lessons higher. In the questionnaires, the students pointed out that they liked the games and found them funny. They liked to compete and work in groups. Some students did not like the noise in the classroom while playing games. The teachers rated the didactic games as
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well-made, which is reflected in the students' demonstrated interest in the situation. They assessed that the didactic games fully correspond to the discussed learning content in terms of learning goals and difficulty. The teachers pointed out that the lessons with didactic games encouraged them to use this method more often. As a weakness of didactic games in general, all interviewed teachers mentioned the time-consuming preparation of materials and implementation of this type of lessons.
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