A Decade Into Experiments With Gamification, Edtech Rethinks How to Motivate Learners
A Decade Into Experiments With Gamification, Edtech Rethinks How to Motivate Learners
A Decade Into Experiments With Gamification, Edtech Rethinks How to Motivate Learners
By Olina Banerji
May 09, 2023
Summary
Even as gamification has become a shorthand for engagement, edtech companies have found it challenging to draw a clear distinction between learning and just having fun.
"The idea is to keep learners motivated in a class. Competing [in a game] doesn't work as motivation for every student. No one wants to be at the bottom of a leaderboard," says Deepak Cheenath, co-founder of Quizizz, a classroom tool that lets teachers create pop quizzes and games.
Through multiple iterations of designing and refining the platform, Tan has grappled with the issue of how to embed learning into a game, because, he says, kids have a totally different mindset when they're playing versus when they have to learn something.
This means ensuring that edtech activities don't punish students who are struggling with math or reading, by, say, dropping them to the bottom of a leaderboard, and instead are designed to reward students for their persistence in trying to play the game.
In a Boddle game, climbing the leaderboard or moving up levels is connected to luck or the user's skill at identifying patterns rather than to how many math questions the user got right.
"There's a tension that we always face as developers of game-based learning to measure, how much time is actually spent engaging with the learning content? And then how effectively is it delivering that content in a way that kids are mastering their learning?" Dexter says.
The goalposts for edtech may have shifted from simple gamification to more nuanced game-based learning.
Reference
Banerji, O. (2023, May 9). A decade into experiments with gamification, Edtech rethinks how to motivate learners - edsurge news. EdSurge. https://www.edsurge.com/news/2023-05-09-a-decade-into-experiments-with-gamification-edtech-rethinks-how-to-motivate-learners