The Super Solvers help players build thinking skills through game play in the new Brain Lab online.

Can playing games make you smarter? This is the kind of question that causes traditional educators to roll their eyeballs... and the kind of "Holy Grail" dream that drives companies like ThinkFun to develop new programs and continue to innovate!

Last month, we were contacted by Allyson Mackey, a cognitive psychology grad student at UC Berkeley. She and a team of researchers had just finished a pilot study in which elementary school students engaged in a program playing Rush Hour, Chocolate Fix and several other games over the course of two months... and they measured an average increase that was the equivalent of thirteen IQ points from beginning to end. Wow!

The implications of these initial findings are huge, and we are thrilled to be communicating with this team and exploring possible larger-scale research in the near future using our new Brain Lab online program! Not surprisingly, I am flying out next week to visit with them and assist in any way possible! Read more about this exciting study!

While I don't believe in magic bullets and am not ready to claim that playing ThinkFun games will change your life (except that you will become a more fun and engaging person!), there is increasing evidence that playing the right kind of games with the right kind of structure and incentives can effectively teach content and improve thinking skills. This is precisely what we aim to do with our new online Brain Lab program. This program takes games students already know and love like Rush Hour, and structures game play in such a way that players stretch their thinking, build their arsenal of strategies, and ultimately become more effective in their reasoning and problem solving! Initial testing showed players eager to engage and hungry for more challenges, and we are currently gearing up for a second round of testing in which we would love to invite you and your students to participate.

*If you work with students in 3rd grade and higher and are interested in being a part of our next Brain Lab test, please share your information and we will contact you with more details!

In addition to these exciting findings out of Berkeley on the power of game play to teach thinking skills, another recent article exploring the power of interactive, video game-based learning quotes esteemed Harvard professor and TED Prize winner Dr. E.O. Wilson as saying, "Games are the future in education." We couldn’t agree more!

Further support for the use of computer-based programs to support deep, higher level understanding and thinking skills comes from Economist Paul Romer, creator of Aplia educational software company. Romer's approach to improving educational outcomes through the use of innovative, interactive computer software is yet another encouraging example that guides the work we do! Read more about Romer's work.

With these big ideas swirling and exciting new developments in our online Brain Lab program on the horizon, we are looking forward to a fantastic year ahead! Again, to participate in our next round of online Brain Lab testing, please sign up. We hope you will join us!