My goal is to improve their scientific literacy I plan on achieving this through play. The learning process should be enjoyable for students. Gamification and Game-Based Learning help accomplish this by taking advantage of other means of student motivation. #education.
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Monday, March 1st, 2021 to Friday, March 5th, 2021
My second week at Sahali was really nice. I got the opportunity to get to know some of the staff a little better. I also was able to observe more junior-level classes as planned. I think I have started to have a more well-rounded perspective on how to manage a class of that age group. I realized that the most effective way to manage a junior-level class is to match their energy while understanding your environment. A class in a gymnasium is going to have different expectations from a class in a portable. I realized that I need to be more forgiving of myself about the volume levels I experienced in my first lesson. Due to the smooth wall nature of the portable, it is very hard to manage volume. Even a moderately loud conversation between students can lead to unreasonable volume levels. I also learned that my teacher mentor runs into similar issues. Some solutions she has shared with me are making sound-absorbent panels to place in her classroom. If I ever end up teaching in a portable I will be sure to check in with her and see how it has turned out. Another thing I have tried to learn more about this week is heavily related to my action research proposal. My proposal deals with game based-learning which deals with the implementation of games as learning tools. A commonly used example of this is Kahoot. Many of the teachers I have observed have used this strategy, but a new idea I have been introduced to was gamification. Unlike game-based learning, gamification is dealt with the design of a course to fit a given theme with point systems to motivate students towards working harder. The one teacher I talked to gamified his history course with Harry Potter. The way he implemented it, the history class was still the center, but the Harry Potter aspect was the reason most of the students attended his class and worked so hard. In an already pretty stimulating science-driven environment students this may prove to be unnecessary but would be really interesting to consider implementing as a unit or small set of lessons.
Gamification has been a new method of teaching that I have been exploring. The idea behind gamification is converting a class into a game by having some form of set goals, points awarded, and/or challenges. Gamification helps create a more inclusive classroom by supporting students who have motivation other than grades, parental pressures, or by the content.
Here is an excellent example of Gamification in a History 12 class at Sahali:
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