The Covid-19 Conundrum
Digital learning (information imparted using devices such as personal computers, laptops, tablets etc.) made deep in-roads into our education system especially for the entire K-12 students (those in schools) amidst the Covid imposed lock-down and it opened up new ways of learning and conceptual understanding.
The adoption of technology on one hand provided the control over time, place and pace, it also provided several new platforms and resources for teachers and educators to bring innovation into learning with materials such as multimedia content, evaluations which then built a deeper connect between traditional text-book concepts and their real-life applications.
One such method that rose to the top of the list of digital learning tools for its ease of adoption is ‘Gamification’.
Enter 'Gamification'
'Gamification’ of education, refers to a teaching approach that incorporates elements of game playing to increase the engagement of students to a taught concept. The features of game design (e.g. keeping a score, competing, levels and storyboard) are introduced to add an element of fun and challenge which also helps to improve productivity for both the educator and the student.
The way it works and why?
The construct of any game is based upon providing incentives and rewards or recognition which finds an easy adoption among-st the younger generation. The digital screens provide ample flexibility to the game developers to collaborate with educators, get creative by breaking down a difficult concept into smaller levels and simplify the learning process with higher engagement and reinforcement training.
It works well as it plays to our basic needs of being in control and being social.
Periodic Table and Gamification?
The earliest adoption of Gamification in education can be traced back to the Russian educator Dmitri Mendeleev (credited with giving us the Periodic Table of Elements) who being an avid card player, used the same design element into listing each element with its properties on a card placed face up on a table.
Uses in the current times
In present times, for instance the game-based learning website, Kahoot that allows teachers and students to create, play and explore a range of educational games, became a favorite among-st the community.
Kahoot based quizzes incorporated not just a range of questions and answers but addition of media materials such as images and videos make learning fun and fast paced. From the educators perspective it provided instant feedback on the level of engagement of the class for each concept with student level statistics and this in turn helped them to identify the learning bottlenecks.
“Another big advantage of the gamification approach is that it can be adapted with same efficiency without the digital platform and across subjects”, says Ms. Priyanka Srivastava, educator & COO, Code Tales. The teachers can create unplugged games which provide a window of opportunity to build community spirit and team-building and all this while teaching a concept not just for applied subjects as Mathematics or Science but also Languages.
Gamification also aids in cognitive development in adolescents and also makes teaching more accessible by higher student participation.
It’s time that the term ‘Gamification’ moves to being ubiquitous in our classrooms as it’s very much here to stay mainstream.
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