KBLOG 56: I Want MY Child/Student to be a Healthy Learning “Addict”!

The Challenge:

In KBLOG 53 I addressed on-screen addiction in boys. I was thinking that since young people are strongly drawn into and focused on activities such as video game playing, can we use the characteristics of video games to turn our students into more eager learners? It turns out that there is research into this idea. We know that young people learn video games quickly and efficiently. There is a video game term called “replay value” it means how much a user wants to play a game over and over. You know when a young person get into that zone, you call your child for dinner, and they reply, “one second, I just need to finish one thing,” but of course they continue playing the video game. According to Daniel Coyle, in his article, How to make learning addictive, he states that the motivation to continue playing a game is not an internal motivation but it comes from the design of the game. A game that people like to play and get addicted to have specific characteristics. Those characteristics include many roles (characters), lots of paths, lots of outcomes. For example, if games have few roles, few paths and few outcomes’ people lose interest and quit. I know that my students love to participate in games, work in teams and compete. How can a teacher or parent use or transform what makes video games so addictive and interesting into teaching young people in school and at home?

A Solution:

Based on research literature here are some specific things that we can take from video games and transfer to help students learn.

1.      Design activities and lessons with varied levels of difficulties and challenges. Offer rewards after mastering specific skills and have students track progress.

2.     Develop methods of immediate-response feedback on performance and progress. Offer quick grading systems and simple achievement rewards (stickers, fun prizes or certificates).

3.     Draw students in by with compelling stories that create emotional engagement. When I tell a personal story my students really focus. I tell my story within the context of a specific lesson in mind.

4.    Adapt and customize lessons to the needs and abilities of individual students (I know this can be challenging), similar to how the level of a video game can be adjusted based on a player’s skill.

5.    Design lessons that incorporate collaborative/and or/competitive aspects. Present challenges to be solved, academic competitions are a great route.

Add lots of activities that make learning as interactive as possible, hands-on experiments, simulation design, problem-solving challenges mimic the engaging aspects of video games

 Resources:

How to Make Learning Addictive - https://danielcoyle.com/2012/04/10/how-to-make-learning-addictive/

7 Ways to Gamify Your Studies to Make Learning More Fun -https://www.oxford-royale.com/articles/7-ways-gamify-studies/

How to Use Gameplay to enhance Classroom Learning -https://www.edutopia.org/article/how-use-gameplay-enhance-classroom-learning

6 Surprising Benefits of Video Games for Kids - https://www.understood.org/en/articles/surprising-benefits-of-video-games