It’s a battle keeping students engaged in education in our screen-soaked world. Kids love learning. But they seem less in love with school and more in love with screen time. How do we reengage our students in school and the love of learning? Have we reached the tipping point where tech in the classroom is necessary for engagement? Or since COVID-19 Stay at Home Orders, have screens isolated kids and made them too fatigued to learn? Screens are great at teaching kids to self-interrupt, leading often report that real-life classrooms turn them off instead of turning them on. Today’s GKIS article highlights the benefit of tech and how gamification is being tested in education.
Traditional Teaching Methods Versus Screen Tech
Traditionally, schools use teacher-led workbook activities, in-class discussions, and textbook-based homework that rely heavily on structured lessons and memorization. Lessons often span longer than 10 minutes. This can be problematic considering the typical adult’s attention span is only 15 minutes.[1] 
Screen technology, on the other hand, is fast-moving and interactive and offers the student on-demand selection at the click of a button. The opportunity to self-select content is empowering and gratifying. Teachers can also track the student’s learning process in real time and gradually feed relevant and increasingly challenging content.
The rewarding versatility of technology has led children to immerse themselves in their virtual worlds an average of ten hours a day. With this number of hours on-screen, many kids are creating brain pathways best matched with on-demand screen delivery rather than teacher-facilitated instruction.
Evidence of Disengagement
Even before COVID, a 2014 poll of 825,000 5th-12th grade students found that nearly half of the students surveyed felt disengaged in the learning process. Only 40% of their teachers believed their students were engaged. Reported numbers were even lower (26%) in high-poverty schools.[2] This finding is particularly concerning, considering that a student’s engagement in grade school is correlated with how well they will do in college.[3]
When schoolteacher and gamification enthusiast Scott Hebert asked his students why they didn’t seem to care about the lessons taught in school, they replied, “I don’t get why we need to do this stuff, give us a reason to care.”[4] Without intrinsic interest, meaning the task isn’t naturally motivating, they felt like they had to jump through meaningless hoops to learn.
Gamification
Gamification was coined by computer programmer Nick Pelling in 2002. The concept of gamification is to take the natural enjoyments that attract people to technology and inject those into education. In other words, create a more fun humanistic approach to education, rather than our traditional instruction-led, function-focused approach.[6]
Dr. See is a professor at the University of Hong Kong who teaches human anatomy and medicine. He noticed that video games and education have features that overlap. For example, they both:
- require solving mental puzzles,
- recalling information,
- looking for patterns,
- working under pressure,
- communicating ideas, and
- working within a time limit.
Because his students loved video games, he decided to use gamification within his classroom. He applied puzzles and games to the curriculum, like for the memorization of the names of medications. As a result, his students reported that they were more motivated and learned better.[7] His gamification worked!
Learning through gamification does not mean it is easy. Gamification is engaging because it requires the student to generate the material instead of being instructed to do so. It is not about making school easier. Instead, it allows the student to actively engage in the learning process.[8]
Intrinsic & Extrinsic Motivators
We are psychologically motivated by intrinsic and extrinsic factors.
Intrinsic motivators (things that you enjoy doing that compel you forward) are important for well-being.
The psychological needs that must be met to feel motivated are:
- autonomy (working on your own),
- competence (being good at it), and
- relatedness (feeling connected to what you learn).
Extrinsic motivators are rewards that come from outside. Examples include grades, points, and praise. External rewards may become harmful to our psychological well-being when they’re the only reason for engagement.[9]
For great learning, then, we must avoid rewarding students with points and grades. Instead, we must allow students to have a choice in what they’re learning and a chance to try it on their own and celebrate their efforts. These goals within a classroom can be challenging.
Gamifying Tests
Video games are set up for lots of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The player gets to pick the game they relate to. then they get to play it on their own, simply restarting after they fail. They may lose points. But so what. They can just start over. Nobody is judging them.
Traditional school testing methods do the opposite. Typically, a failing grade on the test is the student’s final act of the lesson. They don’t get a do-over. That means failure has huge consequences and may leave the learner feeling hopeless and demoralized.
Gamifying testing could reverse that process by offering smaller quizzes that the student can retake over and over as they learn the material. Instead of feeling terrible about their first attempt, they can see their points going up and up – just like in a video game.
Alternatively, starting at zero and gaining points from there encourages a growth mindset. That means looking forward to learning instead of feeling defeated by it. The student would begin the semester with zero points and as the year progresses, they could earn points as they complete assignments. This would give students a growth mindset for their education!
AltSchool
Educators have tested technology-assisted education models, especially since the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. For example, millions of dollars have been invested in AltSchool, a school that promotes a personalized learning platform using technology. In Altschool, students are provided with iPads or laptops and given individualized learning activities. The school encourages students to learn at their own pace, developing the mastery skills needed to learn the subject. The goal is engagement and learning potential.
Outcome studies revealed that students who learned at their own pace felt more competent and autonomous.[10] However, a teacher noticed his students were less connected with each other than before. They were more engaged with the technology than they were with one another. Also, we all remember the Zoom burnout students felt after the COVID epidemic. Losing motivation and connectedness over time may be risks of technologically assisted education.
The need for relatedness and connection is particularly important in learning because others provide feedback and perspective.[11] 
Quest to Learn
Another applied experiment for new and creative education is Quest to Learn. This is a gamified high school in Manhattan that was founded in 2009. Many of the classes at the school are not internet-based but instead teach through role-playing. Students act out the responsibilities of a chosen profession, like learning about politics by impersonating a politician.[12] By narrating the character, a student generates the answers needed for complex subjects.[13]
Because screen technology is still new, innovative (new and creative) teaching models and outcome studies are still being developed. Hybrid models (part in-classroom and part on-screen) are also being tested. As tech 
Thanks to Andrew Weissmann for his research for this article. For a glimpse into some of the benefits of video games, check out our GKIS article Is Your Child a “Professional Gamer”?
Works Cited
[1] Usnews.com Kids asked to learn in ways that exceed attention spans by the Hechinger Report
[2] Edweek.org engagement landscape
[3] Grabbing students by Lorna Collier apa.org
[4] The Power of Gamification in Education Scott Hebert Ted Talk
[5] Pearsoned.com Pearson Student Mobile Device Survey Grades 4 through 12
[6] Yu-Kai Chou: Gamification & Behavioral Design yukaichou.com
[7] School of Biomedical Sciences sbms.hku.hk Dr. See, Christopher
[8] Christopher See Gamification in Higher Education
[9] Kasser and Ryan (1993) A dark side of the American dream: Correlates of financial success as a central life aspiration. (1996). Further examining the American dream: Differential correlates of intrinsic and extrinsic goals.
[10] Black & Deci, (2000) selfdeterminationtheory.org
[11] The Backlash Against Screen Time at School by Rob Waters
[12] Worldgovernmentsummit.org Gamification and the future of education
[13] Benware & Deci, (1984) selfdeterminationtheory.org
Photo Credits
1. Unsplash by Tonny Tran
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Flickr by Carol VanHook
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Flickr by Todd Jesperson
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Flickr by Randomus
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Flickr by Denali National Park
