The Advance Team's Erin Baull

There probably aren’t that many teachers who can say it, but one of them is Erin Baull of the LG2G Advance Team. When asked when she knew that she wanted to be a teacher, Erin answers without a trace of hesitation or doubt: “When I went to kindergarten!”

These days, you can find Erin, the daughter of two teachers, teaching 6th and 7th grade math at the Colonel Richardson Middle School in Caroline County (MD). And even though she’d never used digital games in her teaching prior to joining the Advance Team, Erin’s always found ways to use other kinds of games with her students. For instance, she has her kids play Monopoly and keep track of their game finances in a checkbook to help them learn about using decimals. Why has Erin used games in her classroom? “We see a lot of kids who are already completely turned off by math,” she says. “That’s why I use the games. I’ll do anything to connect with the kids.” And the results are usually good, explains Erin, at least in part because when they’re playing games “the kids don’t even know they’re doing math.”

So given her classroom experience with games, it wasn’t a huge leap for Erin when her school’s math supervisor asked her to get involved with the Advance Team and Lure of the Labyrinth. And Erin has nothing but raves both for her Advance Team experience (“it’s been awesome”) and the game itself (“my kids are so excited to use it”). Erin’s also found that Lure of the Labyrinth really and truly can be a Learning Game to GO: “The kids will say ‘Who cares if we’re out of school? We want to use it at home, too.’” While Erin thinks that Lure of the Labyrinth engages her students in much the same way that board games do, she sees another great teaching advantage to this digital game: “The game already comes in a differentiated package. The students can take as much time as they need, and they can get wrong answers – it works for all of them.”

Erin’s also found the lesson plans and teacher support materials that accompany Lure of the Labyrinth to be helpful as she works to integrate the game into her math curriculum. In fact, when asked what else teachers might need to use Lure of the Labyrinth with their students, this born-to-be-a-teacher teacher says “The only other thing they really need is an open mind.”

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