What is Legends of Learning and How Can It Be Used for Teaching? Tips & Tricks
Legends of Learning is a game-based learning platform that offers curriculum-aligned challenges to help educate and entertain students.
Primarily focused on math and science games, this system is aimed at educating middle and elementary school students (grades K-8) and covers more than 350 learning objectives. This spans a mighty 2,000 games at time of publishing.
The company says that these educational STEM-related games can help improve student engagement, lesson comprehension, and test performances. Thanks to a backing of additional resources, this is more than just a collection of games and offers teacher specific support to help get the most out of everything available here.
What is Legends of Learning?
Legends of Learning may look like a games website but the reality is that this is a very engaging way of teaching math and science through standards-aligned task-based games.
The website comprises more than 2,000 STEM-related games that are helpfully arranged into categories including -- as a science sub-section -- earth a space science, life science, physical sciences, and more. These are arranged with age ranges to help further specify what students and teachers need when looking.
The games themselves are generally made up of an explorative part, in which a character is controlled, and test sections. In these parts there are challenges that require students to respond to a question or task, using science or math knowledge in order to progress further in the game.
How does Legends of Learning work?
Legends of Learning lets students and teachers explore the library of games by section and then under that category, by titles -- each offering a helpful description of the game, including a time of roughly how long it will take to complete.
Begin the game and it is very self-explanatory so most students of all ages and abilities can get going with this, largely without any assistance. That said, teachers are able to offer games such as Awakening, in which they can assign a focus on certain standards as needed to align with teaching goals.
Many games offer multiple choice questions to progress while others have interactive diagrams, memory games, simulations, and more. Usefully, students need to think and know what they're doing in order to make progress in the game -- many of which have characters that students can build up and want to return to and work on.
What are the best Legends of Learning features?
Legends of Learning offers genuinely engaging games that teach at the same time as entertaining -- helping students of all levels get engaged but also to want to return for more.
The alignment with learning standards is really impressive, with many covered including Common Core, NGSS standards, NGSSS, FL BEST, GSE, TEKS, SOL, TASS and plenty more.
Teachers can get feedback and see how students are progressing, or note areas in which they are struggling. Math Basecamp, for example, is a way to effectively complete worksheets at speed while the game character builds something for each correct answer -- allowing teachers to see how students progress, or don't, in varying areas.
The playlist tool is helpful for teachers as it allows the grouping of games, videos, and assessments all in one place that can easily be shared with students or groups as needed. By tracking feedback here, teachers can modify content to make sure it's pushing individuals at the right pace for them.
Teachers can also run reports to see how students or classes are progressing -- although for the full experience here a premium account is needed.
How much does Legends of Learning cost?
Legends of Learning has a few pricing levels including a basic free account.
Basic Teacher: This is free and allows up to three assignments as well as 2,000+ games with limited access, including to the Awakening game.
Premium Teacher: Is $490 per year per teacher and this gets you unlimited assignments and unlimited gameplay.
School: Costs $3,400 for up to 1,000 students -- with options for higher numbers -- and gets you all the above, plus Math Basecamp game.
District: Is charged on a bespoke quote basis and gets complete access.
Legends of Learning best tips and tricks
Follow-up
After teaching a new topic, follow up with a game that tests learning and mastery for use in class or at home.
Reward
Use these games as a reward for work, allowing students to play while still learning and cementing understanding.
Build longevity
Create a leaderboard to show students how they're progressing and to keep them engaged in and returning to the games.
To share your feedback and ideas on this article, consider joining our Tech & Learning online community here