Gamification as an Avenue for Active Learning

In traditional classrooms, teachers engaged students in a didactic one-way delivery of content, usually as part of a one-size-fits-all pedagogical framework. Students are extrinsically motivated and attend class because they are obligated by attendance rules, grades, progress reports, and summative assessment (Banfield & Wilkerson, 2014). Today’s learners have never known a world without the internet and smart devices; they are no longer strictly knowledge consumers, reliant on isolated sources of information. They are content creators, knowledge producers, and information consumers. Often their consumption occurs in a decentralized fashion that relies heavily on the mobile devices that hold more computing power than all of the 1970’s era supercomputers that put humans on the moon. Today’s learners require a different, more active pedagogy.

Active learning positions students as experiential participants rather than passive recipients. It is a mechanism to help modern learners leverage the educational affordances of today’s technology and culture, and it does so in part by creating intrinsic motivation. Learners who are intrinsically motivated come to class because of a need-to-know mindset; they are involved, they are efficient, and they are almost always successful.

One very effective means of creating intrinsic motivation and giving students an active role in learning lies in gamification - the application of game design and strategy in non-game applications. It is not creating games or employing games for learning, but rather it is a pedagogical framework that leverages the aspects of gaming that makes games addictive and fun. Simply put, it uses game components like challenges, achievement badges, competitiveness, and scores to the learning objectives of the content area. The possibilities for gamification are limitless, and they are very effective in modifying student behavior and engagement (Monetan, 2011).

An example of gamification in the classroom

Gamification helps teachers create learning environments that are ubiquitous, differentiated, and self-paced. It can be used in eLearning environments as well as in face-to-face classrooms. During my teaching career, one of my primary professional development aims was to implement gamification strategies; another was to leverage student-owned mobile devices for increased engagement. As a result of a focus on these two aims, I developed an idea for a software application that would employ gamification to accomplish the latter goal of effectively leveraging mobile devices in the classroom. The application is called Wharf, and it’s currently in the design phase of development. The screenshot images below will give the reader a rough idea of how game elements play a role in the use of the app for pedagogical ends.

To put it briefly, the Wharf platform uses engagement data from the screentime algorithm to calculate a score for each student during a learning session. The running score populates a leaderboard and awards badges and other prizes as students progress through the gamification framework associated with content objectives, projects, assessments, etc. A teacher dashboard allows teachers to receive and analyze engagement data, flagging students who may need intervention based on the data. The platform also allows the instructor to capture and drive student devices to a variety of edTech tools selected by teachers and assigned to a dock for easy switching between tools and a streamlined single sign-on through Google.

I think that mobile devices hold a lot of potential for creating avenues for learning that are both active and ubiquitous. If we can gamify the experience and cultivate a learning environment characterized by intrinsic motivation, we can radically change the education industry for the better.

References:

Banfield, J., & Wilkerson, B. (2014). Increasing Student Intrinsic Motivation And Self-Efficacy Through Gamification Pedagogy. Contemporary Issues in Education Research (CIER), 7(4), 291-298. https://doi.org/10.19030/cier.v7i4.8843

Muntean, C. I. (2011). Raising engagement in e-learning through gamification. Proc. 6th International Conference on Virtual Learning ICVL, 1, 323–329. Retrieved from http://icvl.eu/2011/disc/icvl/documente/pdf/met/ICVL_ModelsAndMethodologies_paper42.pdf