Charles educator to teach in Philippines this summer

Games are everywhere, Charles County teacher NiYa Costley said, from earning points at favorite coffee shops to leaderboards at jobs. So why not learn from them?

Costley, a deaf and hard-of-hearing itinerant instructor with Charles County Public Schools, will be heading to the Philippines in July to teach middle and high school students STEM topics through games.

Costley will be helping schools overseas to find ways to bring games into learning and help students become more engaged in the classroom through the use of game mechanics, she said.

“We have to look at new ways of reaching them if we want to help them find ways to connect,” Costley said. “This is just one way to do that — to use game mechanics, whether that’s leaderboards, whether that’s points systems, whether that’s quests.”

The topic is not foreign to Costley — she wrote her doctoral dissertation at Walden University on the "gamification" of STEM, making her a perfect candidate to teach the topic abroad for the Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Short Term Program.

Costley is one of 20 U.S. citizens selected to participate in teaching abroad in the program this year.

Her interest in game-based learning came from a lifelong love of board games. In addition, she has always been a “tech geek,” she said, which led to her interest in studying the intersection of game-based learning and STEM.

“I was probably an adult before I stopped getting a game for Christmas every year,” Costley said.

As she began teaching, she realized that her passion for games had a place in the classroom. She wanted to find a way for students to learn beyond simply memorizing information.

Costley is excited to bring her experience of teaching abroad back to her students in Charles County. As an itinerant instructor, She has been traveling to different schools in the county to support deaf and hard-of-hearing students for nearly 25 years. She also teaches an American Sign Language class at Thomas Stone High School and conducts home visits for some of her students.

“She is enthusiastic and passionate about the work she does inside and outside the classroom," Thomas Stone High School Principal Shanif Pearl said in a press release. "We are excited for her and this opportunity to expand her educational impact to the students in the Philippines and we look forward to her sharing her experiences when she returns.”

Costley hopes that her experience of teaching abroad will inspire her students back home to find their own ways of seeing and impacting the world.

“Because I am a special education teacher, there are times when being able to have that kind of conversation with a student is validating for them. Because I’m also trying to help them understand that yes, you may have an [individualized education plan], but that does not mean that you can’t see the world, or you can’t impact the world, or you can’t change the world,” Costley said.