wow, that is amazing
I'm actually surprised that to this day, learning reading, writing and math has not been very incentivized/gamified.
I'm actually surprised that to this day, learning reading, writing and math has not been very incentivized/gamified.
Meanwhile, I started learning english (not a native speaker) at age 5 because all the broadcasted cartoons were in english, with subtitles. I remember my dad loading up gamified math puzzle games on the Commodore 64 for me to play. And this was some 32 years ago.
I don't know why it's so underused. Perhaps educator are afraid they'll be seen as lazy or not serious about their teaching if they use such measures?
What I do know is that gamification was one of the best ways of being educated as a kid.
The problems with gamification centre mainly around intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation. Some studies strongly suggest that you're teaching kids to seek the rewards of games rather than helping them to find fulfillment in their education.
Gamification works well if you're looking for mechanical responses; it might work better for deeper thinking if the game element is well designed.
Kids feel that fun education is better, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is/isn't the best method.
Some things in studies - money - turn out to be bad motivators for tasks, with larger sums interfering more in people completing more complex tasks. PBL probably follows a similar model.
https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation/ is worth a look.
This did not happen to me or my friends until university. I doubt anything would've fooled us into liking school, but learning games at least would have passed the time quicker.