Project Summary
The project builds on the aim to highlighting the need for quality pedagogical training on a new technologically digital Era where education has less to do with reproducing information passively and has more to do with the development of creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving and decision-making. Regarding adult education these considerations are even more evident. Many times, adult education is seen as a less important training for unmotivated learners and with high dropout rates. Most of the times trainees of disadvantaged cultural, economic, and family backgrounds tend to reveal more academic difficulties, and those are accentuated over the years.
The main goal of this project is to improve adult training with new pedagogical scenarios combined with technology to enrich the training process and simultaneously to ensure greater learning commitment and high retention rates.
To meet this need, the project aims to designing and developing a blended (face-to-face and online) training model based on Games and Gamification for trainers working with adult learners. The training model we propose is, in itself, a gamified game. Will have a sequence of sessions where one creates a global context and a narrative to generate an immersive learning experience. In the training sessions while working on the contents through games users will have (Seaborn and Fels, 2014): (i) Points (numerical units indicating progress), (ii) Badges (visual icons signifying achievements), (iii) Leaderboard (display of ranks for comparison), (iv) Progression (milestones indicating progress), (v) Status (textual monikers indicating progress), (vi) Levels (increasing difficulty tasks), (vii) Rewards (tangible, desirable items), and Roles (role-playing elements of character). All these game elements throughout individual challenges and group tasks (for peer collaboration, because collaboration is one of the basics of gamification).
We want develop an innovative pedagogical scenario that allows our trainers to experience new training strategies while building their knowledge, producing a self-reflection that is fundamental for the process of teaching.
We believe that the innovative pedagogical scenario that underlies the Game-based learning and Gamification is what it takes to face the challenges of training in this new Era and also involve adult learners in order to answer their needs.
We also want to familiarize other trainers (not directly involved in the project from the beginning) with the new pedagogical skills, being the first to test the training materials, participate and use the virtual platform. These trainers will be invited to contribute to the course improvement and also to reflect on how this course can be integrated into the general training offer of their organizations.
A classroom that contains some or all of these elements can be considered a “gamified" classroom. The best combinations, the ones that create sustained engagement, consider the unique needs of the learners and do more than just use points and levels to motivate players. The most effective gamification systems make use of other elements such as narrative and connection with fellow players/learners to really capture the learner’s interest.