———-
The way we learn today is just wrong. Learning needs to be less like memorization, and more like… Angry Birds.
Half of school dropouts name boredom as the No. 1 reason they left. How do we get our kids to want to learn?
The future of education is about flipping our current model on its head and about how key exponential technologies like AI, VR and gamification are going to drive a revolution in education.
From A’s to Angry Birds
In the traditional education system, you start with an “A.” Every time you get something wrong, your score gets lower and lower. In the gaming world, it’s just the opposite. You start with zero, and every time you come up with something right, your score gets higher and higher. It completely flips the way we currently learn, and it’s fun. It’s addictive. How much so?
Over 155 million Americans play video games, and spend upwards of 3 billion hours per week engrossed in it. Think about what you do when you play a video game.
It’s the Scientific Method. We need to make kids as addicted to learning as they are to gaming. The strategy is to literally “gamify” learning itself.
Foldit: A Brilliant Example of Gamification
One compelling example of combining gamification and learning is an application called FoldIt. Proteins are the basic building blocks of your cells. For the longest time, predicting how a protein folds has been a very difficult problem. A group of graduate students asked the question: “Is the ability of the human brain able to predict protein folding better than a computer?” In 2008, they created the game FoldIt, in which a user gets a digital representation of protein and then begins to manipulate and fold the protein on the screen. The lower the stress and strain on that protein molecule, the better their score.
Over 240,000 registered users signed up to play. Brilliantly, it turned out that humans were much better at folding proteins than algorithms — and it turned out that the best protein-folder was a woman who, during the day, was an executive secretary at a rehab clinic and, at night, became the best protein folder on the planet. Gaming outperforms textbooks in every area. Pilots and surgeons trained on video games and simulations outperform those who are not. Customized gaming teaches creativity and innovation. Hours spent playing video games is associated with increased executive function in children. And so on.
So where is this all going?
The Future of Education: Personalized, Perfect and Free
Right now, online platforms like Khan Academy and Coursera have made a plethora of educational resources available 1) for free and 2) on demand, such that you can pick and choose what you learn and at what speed you learn it. Khan Academy has delivered over 300 million lessons since it started in 2006, features 5,000 free instructional videos in 65 languages, and allows users to complete 4 million exercises every day – simply amazing.
In 2011, Stanford professor Andrew Ng decided to put his machine learning course online for free, thinking that maybe a few additional people would tune in with his students. Within days, 100,000 people had signed up to take the course.
We are already seeing technology democratize access to education – but soon the education itself will become even more powerful with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual and augmented reality. In the near future, AI will be able to personalize learning platforms to each individual student. The AI will have unlimited access to information and will deliver it at the optimal speed to each student in an engaging, fun way. This AI will be freely available to everyone (just like Google), and the quality of the education will be higher than that which only the wealthiest people on the planet can afford today.
Then, add this to high-resolution, photo-realistic virtual reality experiences and your kids will be voraciously consuming knowledge. For example, rather than read about Julius Caesar in a history textbook, kids will put on their VR headset, and an AI-driven avatar of Julius Caesar himself will tell them stories as they walk around a virtual rendering of the Roman Coliseum. Rather than try to learn about relativity in a physics textbook, students will be able to “ride” in a virtual spaceship alongside Albert Einstein explaining his thought experiments directly to them.
We are headed toward a future in which education is much better, more robust, and widely available than we can possibly even imagine. A future in which the poorest child on Earth and the wealthiest child are both getting access to identical opportunities, orders of magnitude beyond what we have today.
]]>Allowing your students to play video games in the classroom might seem counterproductive to their success. However, a study conducted by the University of Virginia and the Korea National University of Education found that game-based learning combined with meta-cognitive strategies actually increases students’ performance in the classroom. Gamification, or the process of using game design elements in non-game contexts, allows students to visualize success, have a sense of pride for a job well done and continuously unlock information, reports an infographic created by Knewton. Here are a few ways to add gamification to your classroom:
Positive reinforcement is one of the many reasons gaming is so widely enjoyed. Apply B.F. Skinner’s theory in your classroom to turn learning into an interactive experience. You can reward students with badges, a method that closely simulates the emotions gamers feel after leveling up. If you decide to implement badges, Top Hat cautions that it is important to also integrate bonus points and skill levels for added value. Some good examples of badges include a “Test Taking Expert” for students who get an A on three tests in a row or a “Homework All-Star” for homework turned in on time the entire semester. Additionally, you can use ClassBadges, a free online tool that lets teachers award customized badges to students.
Adding the right amount of competition in the classroom is a great way to motivate and energize students, says TeachHub. Make sure to tailor the difficulty level to your students grade when implementing gaming in your lesson plans. For instance, educational bingo is an appropriate game for all ages, but can be varied based on the content. Spelling bees, game show contests and group versus group activities are other great ways to get students excited about learning new classroom material.
Avoid the negative effects of competition by keeping activities short, fair and symbolically rewarding, states John Shindler, author of “Transformative Classroom Management.”
Mark Griffiths, a professor at Nottingham Trent University, stated that there has been “considerable success when games are designed to address a specific problem or teach a certain skill.” In other words, it is possible for students to build or strengthen language, math and reading skills by playing the appropriate video games.
Introduce this gamification concept by giving students access to educational video games. Create a play space complete with a PlayStation 4, bean bag couches and even a mini fridge, and watch how quickly your students strive to achieve in the classroom. Then, choose fun and popular games like The Lego Movie Videogame, which improves reasoning skills, encourages creativity and cultivates collaboration, says Common Sense Media, an advocate of educational games.
What does World of Warcraft and homework have in common? Quests! TeachThought recommends assigning quests instead of homework to your students because assignments presented in a gamified context gets kids excited about tackling the next challenge. Once a quest is assigned to your students, they must complete it to receive a reward, much like in Warcraft. Classroom-friendly quest ideas include completing the assigned reading to advance on a map of a virtual world, earning experience points for turning homework in on time and math assignments that reveal a code needed to unlock a real or imaginary treasure chest of rewards.
]]>