Gamification or challenge-based learning has been in store for the world of education since thousands of years ago. But they may exist in different form and less popular than they do now. People learn not only by story-telling and listening, but also by using tools that they can see and play with to make the learner understand easier and the lesson become more fun. According to Oxford Online Dictionary, gamification is defined as “The application of typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity, typically as an online marketing technique to encourage engagement with a product or service.” In simpler words, gamification in education means to apply games concepts and elements in teaching and learning strategies. The main idea to infuse game elements into learning is to make the mundane, boring lesson more fun and engaging.

 

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

In games, there are elements of competitions, scoreboards, missions to complete, sets of instruction to follow and many more depending on what kind of game we talk about. Common word games like crossword puzzles, snake and ladder game, scrabbles have been extensively used for various educational activities not only limited to language subjects but also to others in which the learners’ understanding is assessed. Games and toys are initially famous for early childhood education where the children learn most by using their kinaesthetic skills. The best of games are those designed to include active participation of the learners – be it individually or in a team and enhance their psychomotor and cognitive skills.

 

Since the rapid evolution of technology day by day, gamification in learning has advanced to another level. Before, video games and computer games are invented for entertainment and leisure purposes only. There are useful information, of course in some games but if the kids are not guided they have wasted 1 to 2 hours a day playing for fun but not learning a single thing. Seeing how the digital world has upgraded and impacted our lives, academician, experts, teachers have realized the needs to elevate the teaching and learning approach to meet the demands of our kids. Recent years has shown that elements of game playing have diffused slowly into teaching and learning practices. Now there are numerous resources and ideas on educational games that are easily accessible for teachers and schools to implement in class. The interactive tools that integrate this challenge-based learning are available online and offline, free or paid. 

 

In coherence with Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025, one of the 11 pronounced shifts to transform Malaysian Education system exclusively highlights this element – Shift 7: Leverage ICT to scale up quality learning across Malaysia. According to this shift, by 2013, all schools will be provided with internet access and virtual learning environments via 1BestariNet. The role of Excellent Teacher (Guru Cemerlang) to augment online content to share best practices starting with a video library of delivering lessons in Science, Mathematics, Bahasa Malaysia, and English language. Lastly, the maximised use of ICT for distance and self-paced learning to expand access to high-quality teaching regardless of location or student skill level. Based on this proposed strategy, I personally feel that gamification in teaching and learning should be enhanced and varied to help our students become more creative, more critical in thinking and solving problems to be at par with the international standards of the 21st century.

 

I would like to pick some examples of games that are veritably useful as instructional tools in teaching and learning. The two that really attract my interest are Kahoot! and Quizziz. These two online tools are easy to use and suitable for exercise or speed quiz as formative assessment. They exist as free and paid versions (for Pro users) but the free version is already good enough for novice teachers to try out. Teachers need only to sign up and prepare the questions before class. So far, only questions with multiple choice answers can be typed not open response question. That is one drawback of these tools where only low order questions can be asked. Playing this game in class really boost the motivation of the learners to pay more attention during the delivery of the subject content. They are very anticipative to have a Quizziz session every time the class starts. And they are very competitive to become the top scorers of each session. Another thing I like about these online games is the accompanying analysis of the results at the end of every session. The analysis provided is very detailed and easy to comprehend. What marks every student gets, which questions they answer right and wrong, which questions the students have the most problem with are easily identified. The students as well as the teacher can reflect on the outcomes and work on ways to improve. The quiz can also be done anywhere and anytime the teacher wants. Even though the students are not at school, the learning process can still be carried out.

 

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

In addition to that, I would like to address a more advanced and wholesome game notable to education arena worldwide which is Minecraft: Education. Minecraft was initially built by Mojang as computer games for entertainment, but later developed into educational game. Now, the education version of Minecraft has been installed at more than 6000 schools all over the world. What makes Minecraft a total kick-ass is it possesses cross-curricular elements – maths, science, history, computer science, geography and a lot more, designed at different stages to fulfil the learning objectives of the lesson and the students. The game incorporates the three domains for learning – cognitive, psychomotor (manipulative) and affective. The requirement to complete the challenges and missions in the game, will create creativity, innovativeness, increase collaboration and communication among students and their problem-solving skills. Apart from that, this game will likewise spark off their leadership and teamwork skills. This is the definition for the dream characteristics of the next generation – the 21st century learners. They learn to aspire, create, build, beyond imagination using the knowledge they learnt. They also learn to collaborate with other classmates to solve issues and to develop better facilities for community. Students can document their work, share their findings in class, personalize their games (create avatars, design buildings), effectively communicate learning objectives in games, and play in a secure environment along with the class community.

 

The shortcoming for any gamification using computers or technical devices is that the lack of facility in Malaysian schools.  The discussion on the use of computer and provision of internet at schools have been intense. To what extent we can implement the technology-based games with the current disparity of ICT means in Malaysian schools is open for debate. Another challenge also comes from the teacher’s lack of knowledge on the educational games. The teachers should master a game first before moving to the next in order to fully utilize and ensure its validity as a learning tool. Alas, the students may only get the fun part but not the gist of the knowledge content. Nevertheless, this in turn would consume much time, burden the teacher and disrupt the flow of the teaching scheme.

 

In a nutshell, gamification in learning has proven to be more fun and engaging to students. When the motivation is high, students will find the school interesting. Hence, the retention of knowledge will last longer than that of forced, boring class environment. Students have more freedom to build and improve their individual schemata from practicality and own experience. Teachers’ role is very important to guide and facilitate this student-centred learning approach. Teacher needs to arrange the knowledge which they obtain on their own in a structured way so that when they are subjected to new problems, they are able to critically analyse the situations and factors and provide practical and creative solutions in organised way. Emerging technologies in education has significantly improved students’ abilities to higher order thinking skills and their motivation in lesson.

 

​

References

 

(2019, January 3). Retrieved from English Oxford Learning Dictionaries: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/gamification

 

Lowe, N. K. (1988). Games and Toys in the Teaching of Science and Technology. Paris: UNESCO.

 

Pau, T. L. (2016, August 2). Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025. Retrieved from SlideShare:

 

https://www.slideshare.net/traceypapau/malaysia-education-blueprint-20132025

​

What is Minecraft Education: Edition? (2019). Retrieved from Minecraft Education Edition: https://education.minecraft.net/how-it-works/what-is-minecraft/