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 We should be using gamification in education!
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Coveny
New Member

USA
12 Posts

Posted - 02/03/2018 :  20:01:53  Show Profile  Visit Coveny's Homepage Send Coveny a Private Message  Reply with Quote
If you aren’t familiar with gamification it is where you turn learning into a game. This can anything from leveling up as you pass courses to the content being in the form of a game. You may have seen some of the children’s games where balloons fall that have math problems and when the child gets the math correct it pops the balloon. Gamifying learning can get much more complex though, and it has shown many superior qualities to regular learning systems.

Gamification help with motivation:
“Some of the best examples of gamification are exergames that encourage exercise by turning physical activity into a game.”
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0141076813480996

Fortune 500 companies use games to engage employees:
“The list is practically endless. Google, Microsoft, Cisco, Deloitte, Sun Microsystems, IBM, L’Oreal, Canon, Lexus, FedEx, UPS, Wells Fargo and countless others have embraced games to make workers more satisfied, better-trained and focused on their jobs, as well as to improve products and services.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danschawbel/2013/10/07/adam-penenberg-how-gamification-is-going-to-change-the-workplace/#535459032f3f

Gamification has proven its ability to motivate and engage and our education system in America really needs the help. When you look at USA ranking in comparison with the other developed countries of the world we continue to fall further and further behind:
“One of the biggest cross-national tests is the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which every three years measures reading ability, math and science literacy and other key skills among 15-year-olds in dozens of developed and developing countries. The most recent PISA results, from 2015, placed the U.S. an unimpressive 38th out of 71 countries in math and 24th in science. Among the 35 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which sponsors the PISA initiative, the U.S. ranked 30th in math and 19th in science.”
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/15/u-s-students-internationally-math-science/

From a very good article which gives several examples of gamification as well as some of the drawbacks and roadblocks gamification can meet:
“The combination of an increased focus on student engagement and the possibilities provided by digital learning make gamification a powerful tool for educators.” and “The principles of gamification have been fully embraced by a school in two cases, at Quest to Learn (Q2L) in New York City and CICS ChicagoQuest.”
https://www.worldgovernmentsummit.org/api/publications/document?id=2b0d6ac4-e97c-6578-b2f8-ff0000a7ddb6

If we want to reverse our negative trend of falling further and further behind on the global educational comparison charts we need a radical overhaul of our education system here in America. Digital is the obvious answer because not only does it low costs to update material and provide customized education it also increases motivation and engagement with the students. If America wants to take back the lead we need to start now.

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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26020 Posts

Posted - 02/04/2018 :  10:46:38   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
The first thing that needs to happen is for the damn conservatives in government to stop thinking that "America First" and "we can cut the education budget" are compatible ideas. The county I live in used to have one of the best public school systems in the country until the Republicans decided that balancing the books was more important than our kids' futures. Of course, ever since the right wing launched its attacks on reality four decades ago, schools have been seen as the propaganda arm of the Democrats, so it's not surprising that Republicans want them underfunded or eliminated entirely. Any metrics you might supply to show that the USA isn't the worldwide leader in education are obviously (to them) "fake news."

Or is this just another advertisement for your website?

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
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Why not question something for a change?
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26020 Posts

Posted - 02/06/2018 :  11:48:06   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
By the way, at least some liberals think that "large public investments in education, science and research, and transportation infrastructure" should be discussed as national security issues, instead of merely as good policy.

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Malachi Hammer
New Member

4 Posts

Posted - 05/10/2018 :  11:14:28   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Malachi Hammer a Private Message  Reply with Quote
I don't believe it is the lack of gamification that is allowing students from other countries to outperform American students. Have a look at an article where they compared Chinese students to American students in terms of performance in mathematics.
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.3102/0013189X034005003
The key factor leading to this difference "is related directly to their teachers’ deep mathe-
matics understanding and ability to represent concepts flexibly in
their classrooms"
One area where I believe is the future of education is tailored education. There are many studies out there that compare classroom learning to one-on-one teaching, showing that average students can excel if their learning needs were specifically tailored to. With the rise of AI in the upcoming decade, we could use AI to replace and replicate normal tutors in online education. We are already starting to see this in action (although without AI component), but students nowadays have access to many online resources such as https://www.khanacademy.org/ and models such as https://www.studypug.com/tutor.html are starting to shake up the stale education system that has been decreasing in quality over the years.

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