Learning is the process of association of concepts and formation Free Essay Example

Learning is the process of association of concepts and formation of bonds with regards to both theoretical knowledge and practical skills.

People learn in different ways and accordingly there are different types of learners out there: contextual, visual and theoretical. To make a learning program interesting and captivating, we need to integrate content, media and technology at our disposal. A gamified design helps in organizing such integration to suit different learner genera.

The fact of the matter is that the teaching methodology and ways of instructions must also evolve with on par with current advancements in technology.

A Gameful design for learning uses game-based design for the purpose of application in the non-game contexts, of teaching and learning, which amounts to incorporating a few relevant elements and conceptions, borrowed from serious games, into the design.[10] The Gameful design plugs in the required extra psychological, social and emotional powers [8] into the learner extrinsically, in order to fill the respective quotas of those powers that are lacking intrinsically, so that the required engagement levels are achieved for learning to happen.

However their proper design is the key. Games are only fun when they are well-developed. Similarly, the design of the gamified system is central to achieving desired learning goals and realizing learning objectives. A well designed gamified system can accomplish anything.[8]

Gameful application leverages natural human desires for socializing, learning, mastery, competition, achievement, status, self-expression and altruism.[2]

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The types of reward mechanisms used in the Gameful design can be achievement points, badges or levels, filling of progress bars, virtual currency and making a player’s performance records visible to other players via leader boards.

Thorndike’s three basic laws of learning [6] are well known:

1. The Law of Readiness: Also called the Law of Action Tendency, it says that readiness is a precursor of any type of action. Preparatory mind-set or attitude arouses action tendency.

2. Law of Exercise: It outlines the essence of training, drill and practice in learning something. Every session of practice leaves its trail which is strengthened and reinforced with successive episodes of practice sessions. Efficiency and durability of learning material in our heads is dependent on our efforts and time devoted in our practice sessions.

3. Law of Effect: The intensity is the precursor of effect. The intensity of pleasing experiences has positive effects. Teaching must be pleasing. The educator must obey the tastes and interests of the pupils. The responses and lessons that are satisfying to students are learnt and selected, while those that are not satisfying are eliminated.

Taking from Thorndike’s experiments of puzzle box on animals,[6] learning in the backdrop of educational/academic discipline can be defined as a function of time taken to learn a particular concept good enough to reproduce it and then surpass it without any external aid. Gamified pedagogical systems and Learning Management Systems built around this functional definition of learning can use number of retries within a stipulated time period to generate corresponding reward or experience points as performance metrics.

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Gamification promotes active participation of learners by way of interactive and action-prompting feedback mechanisms. A Gameful environment has the ability to fill in the required level of motivation extrinsically in the otherwise not-so-impelling routine tasks.

Fun and engagement arise out of the interplay of the senses of mastery and comprehension. Any mind-numbing activity can be made enjoyable by restructuring the activity within a framework of goals, rules and fun by exploiting simple elements of some game.

Incorporating gaming elements into a learning environment will create a sense

of urgent optimism for engaging in a meaningful and productive experience.[11] Students will be able to get autonomy to make choices about their learning preferences, or in choosing their approach towards their learning.

With many digital games out there, games have become a familiar parlance among children[11] and youngsters today.

Gaming has extended beyond what was initially its natural boundary of entertainment and is now associated with the process of problem-solving while providing analytical questioning of scientific complexion through active gameplay. Games can be shown to generate cognitive engagement due to their inherent interactivity, and even inculcating confidence of control. Gaming

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technology and the associated interfaces can potentially offer memorable and formative experiences to users.[9]

Gamification is the process of using game elements (scorecards, leader boards, badges, virtual currency, teamwork, stimulating audio-visuals, etc.) in non-game contexts. One such non-game context is an engineering coursework, which is highly structured, complex and full of technical parlance and jargons and conceptions. This area becomes a great opportunity to test and implement the ideology of designing a Gameful learning platform.

As an example in the case of Workshop practice for mechanical engineering students, it is impossible to provide a separate lathe machine to every student due to various obvious reasons including expenses, chances of machine tool getting damaged by novice students, maintenance costs and related financing issues, floor space, etc. However a full fletched virtual workshop environment can be created on a Virtual Learning platform that mimics the real-time operations of a lathe and even augments and provides added functionalities and modifications, such as taking apart the lathe part by part to see its assembly and mechanisms within. Moreover, such a virtual environment will always be with a student and can be accessed by him/her anytime and anywhere with a computing or mobile device. It’s similar to playing games on computers and mobile devices the with regards to the engagement in it, and entirely different with regards to the purpose, which is to educate or train them in a theoretical subject or a skill, instead of solely entertaining them.