Maybe it’s the weather. But, this morning, when I should have been mindlessly drinking my coffee and doing a puzzle – I found myself thinking.
I’m a gamer. I have always liked games. And puzzles.
I like card games, crossword puzzles and to a lesser extent, jigsaw puzzles. I like sudoku, Wordle, logic games and apps like bubble shooter and match 3 games. I like locked room puzzles, escape games and board games.
So, today I was thinking: maybe all those hours spent gaming aren’t wasted.
These are the things I learned from solving puzzles.
Sometimes its best to start over.
Try looking at the problem from a different perspective.
Take a break.
Try something – anything. It’s okay to make mistakes.
Maybe I need help.
A path might be possible, even if it seems improbable.
A solution exists.
Patience.
I learned to look for logic, implied rules and the key or pattern.
I discovered it was possible to get into a flow.
I found out that sometimes I have to let go of certainty. If it isn’t working, try something else.
And I found that I got better with practice. Difficult puzzles became easier to solve. I hadn’t gotten smarter in any discernable way – but I had gotten smarter at that particular puzzle type. From that I learned perseverance.
And in addition games provided the opportunity to develop formal and informal communication strategies, to anticipate the actions of others and to become a better team player.
Sound like life skills to me. Skills that are demanded by employers. Skills that are hard to teach in traditional ways.
And that brings me to the idea of ‘gamification’ in education.
There is a lot written about gamification but I personally haven’t seen it being well executed.
My conclusion is that gamification is a way of learning – not a way of teaching.
You can have fun in the classroom by turning a topic into a game, like Jeopardy. But wrapping a game around a subject does not mean you have gamified the process.
True gamification allows the learner to explore options. Feedback is immediate. There is the opportunity to get a hint but sometimes it is at a cost.
And contrary to popular belief, gamification does not require prizes. Getting it right, finding the solution is the reward. Sometimes the reward is the opportunity to do it again, or to take a harder challenge, to level up.
Gamification consists of providing a problem (and the problem might be obscure). A variety of tools are available but not all are going to be useful in solving the problem.
Gaming allows a learner to get it wrong – without too much pain. The game should be interesting enough that the learner wants to solve the problem. And sometimes, just like in life, there is more than one approach or even more than one solution.
Gamification does not require technology, although, obviously, technology can help.
Gamification is simply the new way to talk about holistic learning that integrates logic and problem solving.
If gamification is so awesome, why don’t we see it implemented more often?
I think it is because traditional education focuses on teaching – not on learning.
As a life-long learner I know that even strategically placed quizzes make tradition linear learning more engaging. This is the low hanging fruit that all educators should be exploring.
I checked out Kahoots. https://kahoot.com/
It offers a variety of interesting ways to ask questions and solicit feedback. I can see how it could increase engagement and enhance retention. But it is not gamification.
Will we ever move to a truly learner centric process – one that would utilize simulations and gamification?
Like all paradigm shifts, gamification requires investment in time, tools and techniques. Change is never easy.
So far, there is insufficient demand to make the allocation of resources worth while.
Educators are not motivated. At the highest level, if it is done properly, the students don’t need the teacher. They might need a coach or facilitator but not a teacher.
Some students would be concerned because the path isn’t clear. They won’t not know what is expected of them. Exams and other traditional metrics would disappear. In fact, some of the highest achieving students will find gamification frustrating since it breaks the model they have mastered. They won’t be told the right answer.
Well, that’s what I was thinking about – in case you care.
BZMind 