Securing belonging and gamification 1

Collaborative Inquiry Project - Part 1:

Securing belonging and gamification.
Laura Hall, Jessica Holder, Ben King, Brittany Reid and Kate Willey.
Dr. Alexander de Cosson
ETEC 532 /65A
March 20, 2016
University of British Columbia

Introduction
Communities of learning are being redefined as new technologies grow more prevalent in the
everyday lives of educators and students. While new technology has become a seamless,

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integrated part of daily life, its inclusion into the classroom is often clumsy and awkward. As
educators, we seek to use smooth efforts to meet students where they are by bringing authentic
opportunities for technology use into the classroom, while helping students grow in individual
identity and in civic and global citizenship. Veletsianos (2011) challenges educators by stating
that [w]e should aspire for learning that changes the ways a learner acts in the world (p.45).
This literature review analyzes the use of game based learning (GBL) as a means for providing
rich and meaningful learning experiences - learning experiences that allow a new generation of
learners to become critical thinkers and problem solvers while growing into better citizens.

A New Generation of Learners

What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they
disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with
wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?
Plato, 4th Century BC
The idea that the younger generation is different in some way from the older generation is not a
new concept. As the quote above by Plato attests, the thinkers of two thousand years ago were
wondering what was different in the generation below. With the rise of digital technology we are
living through another generational shift. We are seeing a generation of learners whose comfort
levels and familiarity with technology stand in contrast to those tasked with educating them
(Siegel, 2014). This new generation has been given a wide range of names including digital
natives, millennials, the G-Generation, and more (Siegel, 2014, Zicherman, 2011). What traits
are shared by this generation? What does this mean for education?

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As is traditional when there is a difference between generations, the new generation is

often described using negative traits. This millennial group is commonly described as being
inattentive, easily bored, and disengaged (Zicherman, 2011). Are these traits intrinsic to the
group, or are they appearing in response to an education system poorly suited to their style or
learning. These digital natives were raised in a world surrounded by digital technology. This
has created a group of learners comfortable in a multitude of literacies (Siegel, 2014). The
learners of today are not suited for traditional didactic instruction. Instead, the new learners
thrive in active learning environments. In the article by Jong, Shang, Lee and Lee (2008) this
ideal learning environment is described as one that is goal oriented, contextual, interesting,
challenging and interactive (p. 1). This ideal learning environment has led researchers to look
into using a digital medium already popular amongst the new learners, video games.
One of the most popular forms of digital media consumed by youth today is video
gaming. The video game industry has become multibillion dollar institution with a massive user
population(Shaffer, Squire, Halverson & Gee, 2005). As gaming has become more popular and
advanced, its users are no longer simply participating in dexterity experiences. Instead, gamers
are now participating in immersive and complicated social and cultural experiences (Zicherman,
2011). This advancement has led to more researchers exploring how best to use gaming to create
the learning environments best suited for the learners of today and tomorrow.
Game Based Learning
Erhel and Jamet (2013) define Game Based Learning (GBL) as an emerging method of
instruction where students engage in game-like activities that have defined educational goals or
learning outcomes. The educational games are designed to promote either knowledge acquisition
or the development of cognitive skills. GBL in an educational setting can take a variety of forms

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but most often takes on the qualities of a simulation where learners assume the role of another
and employ their skills and the knowledge they have acquired in a virtual learning environment.
Jordan Shapiro (2014) in "Heres Why We Need Video Games in Every Classroom" emphasizes
that gamification is not a form of GBL because gamification requires students to be in constant
competition with learners receiving rewards, badges and opportunities to level-up. The use of
these types of rewards encourages learners to be motivated by a commodified motivation
system (Shapiro, 2014). Instead, GBL serves to motivate students intrinsically by encouraging
them to understand the system and how things work rather than engaging in an activity in order
to receive a better grade or badge.
Quest to Learn (2016) is a public school based out of New York that services students
from grades 6-12. The school is innovative in that educators collaborate directly with in-house
game designers to create a unique educational philosophy where educational games make up the
core of the curriculum. The school suggests that well designed GBL applications are "carefully
designed, student-driven systems that are narrative based, structured, interactive and immersive"
(Quest to Learn, 2016). There is a variety of principles that various organizations follow when
designing educational learning games. Quest to Learn has identified seven principles of game
based learning that they incorporate into every game that they design. These principles include:
participation and engagement, constant challenge, learn by doing, immediate and ongoing
feedback, failure reframed as iteration, interconnectedness, and the notion that learning feels like
play.
Jane McGonical (2010) suggests that in game world, we become the best version of
ourselves because we are able to face problems of any magnitude and use collaborative and
critical thinking skills to solve the problems faced within the game. Game based learning

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requires learners to employ higher order thinking skills including critical thinking, creative
problem solving and collaboration (Devlin-Scherer et al., 2010 ). These higher order thinking
skills are the skills necessary for success in all areas of education (Shapiro, 2014). Therefore,
research in game based learning has increased in the last decade as educators begin to study the
benefits and drawbacks of using educational games in the traditional classroom.
Educators can use GBL as a means to teach students the skills necessary to be active
citizens within their community. McGonical explains that if we harness the notion that anything
is possible to achieve in a game we can use these skills to actively solve real world problems like
hunger, poverty, climate change and global conflict.

Simulations Providing Opportunities for Experience

Simulations are understood to be the act of imitating a situation or process in order to study or
practice a task (simulation, n.). The emergence of the technological world has effectively
developed opportunities for online simulations to enhance learning through training
opportunities. To assist in problem solving, simulations have been developed to improve the
quality of student learning experiences to engage and interact with information providing
opportunities to make meaning individualized. From virtual museums and fieldtrips to opensourced platforms, research indicates that there is an increased rate in student engagement and
motivation when working in environments of production, such as simulations (Devlin-Scherer, et
al., 2010).
Simulations offer students the opportunity to interact within a virtual environment to
effectively satisfy their information-gap and to encourage the development of their curiosity,
interest and engagement (CIE) (Arnone, 2011). The methods of information acquisition in the
twenty-first century world are changing the face of education. Although slow to adopt, the field

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of education is developing to reflect the needs of the learners to properly prepare them for
successful participation in civic life. The New London Groups (1996) famous manifesto states
that the fundamental purpose of education is to ensure that all students benefit from learning in
ways that allow them to participate fully in public, community, and economic life (p. 60). With
emerging technologies, the preparation of students to fully participate must echo the modes of
communication and information transmission of the outside world. Simulations, as created by
programs such as Edmodo, offer opportunities for students to immerse themselves into an online
community where they can have the opportunity to practice effective use of and participation
within that said community while still being scaffolded and monitored to support students
growth and maturation online. De Cosson (2016) states learning should involve an
understanding of it associated structure, to further explore one's understanding of their social.

Simulations and Games Enhancing Student Engagement

Simulations and games enhance student engagement and learning experience through
contextualized interaction with materials. These mediums allow for a bridge where students can
internalize the information through their ability to control their experience. The learner has the
potential to make choices, investigate information, and problem solve, all while working at the
appropriate pace and level of individual cognition. This generates deeper understanding and
reflection as the learners are able to negotiate their own experience (Moon, 2001). The creation
of these occasions through online simulations and games, as Sherry Turkle (2007) explains,
provides the learner the ability to deal with experience by creating model situations and to
master reality by experimenting and planning (p. 12).
Simulations and games are not a new pedagogical approach to learning. Far from it,
educational pedagogies remind us that play is how children make sense of the world and is an

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effective method of learning for young children. Ideas and skills become meaningful; tools for
learning are practiced; and concepts are understood (Best Start Expert Panel on Early Learning,
2007, p. 15). These concepts have been extended to include the online platforms. Voithofer
(2005) observes, we change the world by changing the way we make it visible, drawing our
attention to the fact that it is not the concept that weve altered but rather the medium (p. 3).
Opportunities for learners to define their own educational experience is explored by Rennie and
Masson (2008) when stating that the learner must actively engage in the construction of their
experience [through online and game-based activities] rather than passively absorbing existing
content (p. 4-5).
The need to individualize student experience to meet students cognitive abilities along
with amalgamating online experiences is an opportunity for teachers to approach their practice in
a new and unique way. Simulations and games function to enhance student learning and in turn
motivate and engage students in their learning experience. Marjorie Siegel (2012) asserts,
Students will need to become designers of meaning with facility in the full range of
design elements or modes of meaning making including visual, audio, gestural, spatial
and multimodal meanings in order to successfully navigate the diversities of texts,
practices, and social relations that are part of working lives, public lives and personal
lives in new times, further extending the need for participation for meaningful and
practical learning. (p. 672)
This effectively supports student advancement through preparation for interaction in real world
contexts.

The Need for Evolving Educators

As educators advance through the 21st century, the need to adapt to the changing needs of the
student requires an evolutionary approach to implementing new technology into learning
environments (Zhao & Frank, 2003). This implementation requires teachers to change the way

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they teach in response to students engaging in different ways of learning outside of the
classroom. Shappiro (2014) promotes video games as an essential learning tool to change how
teachers teach, how students learn, and how both think about knowledge. He asserts that Game
Based Learning opens up a virtual world of opportunity to teach students how to think about
ideas and experiences, rather than to teach students about facts and information, or what
Shappiro refers to as things. Shappiro suggests that good teaching is always about opening the
possibility for thinkingand it is through this opening of possibility that students have freedom to
identify problems, implement strategies, experience failure and then try again (2014, 6:14-6:18).
By providing opportunities to develop these metacognitive skills, teachers are helping students
grow into young citizens for a future world that is better than the one we live in now
(Shappiro, 2014, 22:36-22:39).
Schaffer, Squire, Halverson and Gee (2005) also emphasize that game-based learning
provides powerful opportunities to grow young citizens. They proclaim that [g]ames bring
together ways of knowing, ways of doing, ways of being, and ways of caring: the situated
understandings, effective social practices, powerful identities, and shared values (Schaffer et al.,
p.107) that are necessary to shape effective and growing citizens. At the time of Schaffer et al.s
(2005) writing, they premised that the educational system as a whole, and teachers as
individuals, were not yet adapting to the opportunities of game-based learning technologies, and
were instead continuing to embody standardized curriculum and traditional learning theories and
instruction. Siegel (2012) and Veletsianos (2011) also document this lack of engagement in new
transformative learning opportunities. This lack of engagement results in an even greater gap
between teachers teaching and students learning. As noted by Siegel, teachers often report a
lack of preparation for, experience with, and confidence in teaching anything other than

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conventional literacy (2012, p. 673). This deficiency in immersing oneself in multiliteracies,

promotes a 2-D educational environment, rather than a 3-D educational experience that reflects
what students are highly familiar with in regards to their natural learning activities outside of the
classroom.

Citizenship and Identity for the Digital Generation

As this review has previously explored, the world around us is changing, and our students are
changing in response. In the white paper published by Jenkins, Purushotma, Weigel, Clinton, &
Robison (2006) that is hosted on a website dedicated to the topic of new media literacies, they
quote the New London Group (2000): If it were possible to define generally the mission of
education, it could be said that its fundamental purpose is to ensure that all students benefit from
learning in way that allow them to participate fully in public, community, [creative,] and
economic life (p. 9). Our collaborative inquiry project takes this concept and endeavours to
demonstrate how gamification can encourage students to become participatory members of
culture, and develop their senses of self as responsible digital citizens.
On their website New Media Literacies, Jenkins et al. (2016) outline what they consider
to be core cultural competencies of students who are able to fully participate in new media.
These core cultural competencies build on the traditional skills within the classroom, but stress
the importance of assessing, creating, and engaging with online sources and tools with integrity.
What technology affords, but in turn should demand, is a form of teaching that takes full control
away from the instructor and instead asks them to provide opportunities for engagement and
transformation, and that learning outcomes cannot be forced or achieved unless learners
exploit such opportunities as are provided to them (Veletsianos, 2011, p. 47). Kalantzis & Cope

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(2010) perceive pedagological changes such as these as a revolution, one that held the teacher
as the focal point and kept the students largely silent and passive (p. 200). They explain:
This type of education, in a sense, worked perfectly well for a society in which learners
were destined to belong to traditional workplaces which required deference to authority
and whose skills requirements were minimal, predictable and stable. It was well suited to
the creation of homogeneous and submissive citizenries (p. 201).
As Arnone et al. (2011) write, students who are being born and growing up digital are not
showing engagement in classrooms where only the most traditional forms of teaching are used,
and are challenging us as teachers to challenge them (p. 182).
Technology within the classroom can not only encourage curiosity and exploratory
behaviour, but if implemented in ways that relate to students already-familiar contexts i.e.
through game and simulation-based learning opportunities, encourage them to seek out
opportunities to apply these qualities in the greater world. In her TED Talk Gaming can make a
better world, Jane McGonigal (2010) outlines four things that she believes games enhance in
players: urgent optimism, social fabric, blissful productivity, and epic meaning (8:52). These
qualities characterize what Kalantzis & Cope (2010) call Generation P P for participatory (p.
203): a new type of learner. Gaming allows players to become a character who is able to
overcome challenge, is willing to take risks, and take responsibility for the outcome all of
which are criteria for valuable, invested citizens in modern cultures.

Conclusion
Despite the popular rhetoric about the current generation, our students are seeking out
opportunities for self-expression, autonomy, and personal challenge. Although the ways in
which we as teachers are perceived by them, and how our roles may be conducted in the future,
are changing, we are still charged with the task of meeting the needs of our students with what is

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made available to us. Game-based learning and simulations provide opportunities for all
students, including those in the arts and humanities, to participate in engaging and authentic
activities that can be translated to experiences outside of the classroom. With the advent of the
internet and the steady integration of technology into so many spheres of life, there are more
opportunities for students to see themselves as they are now, and as who they may become, in
broader, deeper, and more far-reaching ways than ever before.
References
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