The talk ““Insert Coin” – A long-term study of education gamification” will be presented December 9th, at 3pm, room I-105, moderated by Prof. Daniel Mendes (DEI).
Abstract:
Education nowadays still follows, for the most part, the traditional lecture-based teaching paradigm that has been the leading approach for well over a century. This flies in the face of current personal learning dynamics, in a world where information is increasingly at our fingertips. This mismatch between student expectations and classroom practice directly impacts their interest, engagement, and will to learn. Gamification has shown promise, in recent years, as a way to bring a game-like experience to several contexts, including education. Using it, learning becomes a game, with expected increases in motivation and, consequently, learning outcomes. Over a period of thirteen years we have gamified a MSc-level course, Multimedia Content Production. We tried to appeal to student’s nature as gamers and provide a flexible experience whereby they can exercise their autonomy. We will present how the game experience has evolved over that period of time and the lessons learned based on student expectations and reactions in this context. What is more, it soon became clear to us that students do not all react to the gamified experience in the same way. We can profile them using a four-cluster taxonomy, that has shown resilience throughout the years and that serves as the basis for an adaptive learning experience that will, finally, allow us to depart from the monolithic one-size-fits-all approach to education.
About the Speaker:
Daniel Gonçalves is full professor at the Computer Science Department of Instituto Superior Técnico – University of Lisbon, and a researcher in the Graphics and Interaction area at INESC-ID, where he specializes in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), in particular in Education Gamification and Information Visualization. With a prolific academic output, he has authored over 200 scientific articles and a textbook on HCI, guided 11 doctoral and 100+ master’s students, and played a prominent role in various research projects in the area.