Innovating Islamic Religious Education through Educational Games: Evidence from the PKM-I Program at Thammislam Foundation School, Thailand

Abstract

Islamic Religious Education (IRE) within multicultural settings particularly in schools serving Muslim minority communities across Thailand confronts a range of persistent pedagogical difficulties. Chief among these is the limited capacity of teacher-centred, lecture-based methods to sustain student engagement and foster genuine conceptual understanding. This article documents and critically examines the integration of Islam-themed educational games as an instructional innovation within the International Community Service Program (PKM-I), implemented at Thammislam Foundation School in Southern Thailand. The program was delivered through a structured three-phase model: an initial conceptual introduction to educational games and their pedagogical rationale, a live facilitated demonstration conducted by Indonesian university students, and a student-led hands-on practice session carried out in small collaborative groups. Adopting a qualitative descriptive approach grounded in participatory observation and post-session reflective documentation, this study captures the range and depth of student responses across each phase of the single-session intervention. The findings reveal a marked shift in classroom dynamics: students exhibited sustained and voluntary engagement from the moment the demonstration began, and the practice phase elicited levels of concentration and accelerated content mastery that local IRE teachers described as substantially exceeding their typical classroom experience. The game mechanics  particularly their capacity to encourage spontaneous repetition, organic peer-assisted learning, and emotionally enriched participation appeared to activate cognitive processes that deepened retention. This study contributes to a growing body of evidence affirming that value-aligned educational game design, even in short-duration deployments, holds considerable promise for revitalising IRE pedagogy across Southeast Asian Muslim minority contexts.