by Terry Heick
Giving the best way to establish what a learner understands is not easy – if for any other reason, understanding of himself is not simple.
THE Difference between gamification and game -based learning is important: the first uses encouragement mechanisms to promote engagement, while the second uses video games as main sources of learning or cognitive action equipment) is a response.
By integrating various achievements into activities and evaluations, the progress of learning can be refracted endlessly. These systems could respond more flexibly to the unique ways and capacities of the learner, and would serve more mechanisms of encouragement – instead of a carrot stick, there are hundreds. And not only carrots, but all imaginable fruits and vegetables.
But video games have even more to offer formal learning systems. Much more. Although what really constitutes a video game changes with emerging technologies, in these digital playgrounds, progress is generally iterative and obliges players to demonstrate their competence in certain fields.
Be able to This before going to that.
See also 50 ways to empower students in a connected world
How the games have mastered cognitive commitment
There are tropes in video game mechanisms that players hardly like universally, including “training” sessions, where players must prove to video games that they can fulfill a basic function before moving on. Turn left, turn right, jump, pick up an object, open a card, etc.
Inskippable cutting scenes which are not significant or integral to the game itself are not funny either.
A lack of choice of players – games where the developers lead you on a single path and offer the appearance of choice without offering a note agency? Not “engaging”.
A game too difficult or too easy? Not at all engaging.
A game where the mechanisms themselves do not engage – the actions and behaviors that players can really control – is not fun because what you do is not engaging. You simply use the functions of a predetermined system that does not need you, has not been created for you, does not require specific genius or talent, and looks and sounds and play in the same way for each player, whatever their capacities, their history, their objectives, their interests, etc.
Although something like a basic test field does not sound bad in theory, it stifles pleasure because it destroys the sense of the rhythm, the interest and the curiosity of the players. It is a severe reminder that you play a game, that the game is in control and that you are only for the journey, which also dissolves the immersion.
Not very different from school, then.
Most game designers have learned, however. Compulsory training sessions and even ski -papable cutting scenes – game breaks that force players to watch videos that may or may not be an integral part of the game – are less frequent than they were two years ago. They also evolved unlocking. By performing tasks – as minor as the opening of a treasure chest, or as important as finishing a level – new “things” are unlocked: new areas, new weapons, new characters, new capacities, etc.
These mechanisms are used to encourage the player because to move forward, the elements must be verified – in a way not only visible, but which reward game, experimentation and curiosity. And unlike the aforementioned compulsory training session, they are immediately increasing, intermittent, often voluntary and rewarded players.
Mount a mountain or kill an enemy of the robot? Bam. A new brilliant element as a reward, in a unlocked procedure, the percentage of completion of the game flashes on the screen. Immediate feedback and visible progress.
To take away to learn
So what’s to do with school? Many, in fact.
Although there is no unique way of “the school is”, there are general models that reward compliance, rigor and punctuality while stifling the central, abstraction and the game of the learner. What would happen if a student commitment was necessary to unlock the next assignment in a learning environment based on projects? In the light of students’ commitment, irregular progress rates – in particular in college is demonstrated – retain a commitment from students because it has trouble with an idea has no meaning.
Video games do not do that.
While the player’s “struggles” – that is to say, build control of a skill or an idea – game designers let the player continue playing. To learn. So that the skills are modeled. To inspire. The game designers have learned to give the games to give the players so that they can unlock their own experiences – and inspire game designers to start with their ideas.
See also 10 strategies to ensure that learning is more like a game
Make them leave them
Essentially, the question in question here is a personalized learning. Allowing users to proceed at their own pace, play with ideas and content and obtain a variety of achievements beyond these educators insists. Learning is really a game. It has rules, rewards and should be modifiable to adapt to the objectives and natural donations of the learner.
Video games have been forced to change their linear and closed approach because they are essentially small businesses, and in any business that does not “earn money”, there is no guarantee of future games.
But for learning environments, potential loss is much greater.
And so they must at least Make this kind of evolution correspond by putting students first and adapting the game to them. A way of doing it is to offer various ways through the content to unlock and offer equally diverse rewards for said unlocking.
10 student engagement strategies that allow learners
1. Design lessons that cannot work without obligation from students.
2. Conceive learning experiences so that students see progress visible on a daily basis.
3. Make the objectives clear and offer a student commitment to several ways to complete them.
4. Give students the tools to design and build something that you hadn’t even considered / would never have thought.
5. Design with iteration in mind: a skill is based on the next, and students need everything to succeed.
6. Use learning -based learning where students design the entire process, from brainstorming to publication.
7. Give students learning tools and malleable resources that they can personalize or “upgrade” to adapt to their approach to learning.
8. Do the apprenticeship both collaborative and competitive.
9. Consider learning based on challenges and education based on the place, where students solve important problems for them, in the watching communities.
10. Gamify your class in a way that does not focus on standards, data or “competence”, but significant personal progress for the student.
These approaches, although vague, can help you make the leap for learning engagement in your class which is parallel to the things that captivate them so completely on all these digital screens.
Founder and director of teaching
