I saw one of the reserved pupils playing a game on their phone prior to a lesson. They put in a lot more focus and effort to win that level than they ever did in class, in my opinion. The pupil lacked interest as soon as our lesson began, and his or her enthusiasm vanished. As a result, the dilemma became how to entice pupils to give me their undivided attention. Could Gamified education be the solution?
What is gamified learning, exactly? It is the use of gaming techniques to involve pupils and enhance their learning, by including game components in a classroom. For instance, the task or action may be the objectives, game mastery results in marks being earned, levels include more difficult stuff to understand, and completing the tasks results in medals or badges.
What advantages are there? Firstly the students are constantly engaged due to the addictive effect gaming has. This in turn improves the students’ motivation, according to a 2022 study that included more than 100 eighth graders. Motivation makes people more open to understanding novel ideas. Furthermore, the sense of accomplishment gained from completing a level is comparable to fully comprehending the principles. Also, there is increased retention of information that can be easily applied to the real world. lastly, it develops their social skills as they become more competitive and interact with each other to get assistance on how to move up the levels.
Let’s create a classroom configuration using all those components. Consider educating students about photosynthesis and translocation (the movement of the sugars involved in photosynthesis). Every student is using a digital device. Finding the process’s raw materials is level one’s task. The student can advance to stage two once all the raw ingredients are available. Where the process occurs at level two, in the chloroplast. The pupils advance to stage three if they are successful at producing glucose under the necessary conditions. Level three asks pupils to transport the glucose to the rest of the plant and ultimately to sugar storage units. How might the teacher tell if each level’s student understood the concept at each stage? Digital evaluation!
With an integrated in-class assessment that takes place in real-time, a digital assessment tool would make the task seamless. The teacher can now spot the students who have gotten lost in the weeds. In order for the teacher to know where to start the following session, an assessment tool that would also record the grades along with a progress report of the pupils is needed.
Would an app like this be of interest? If so, click here to sign up for a beta version of such a tool by filling out an online form.
