4,551 research outputs found
Gamification in higher education and stem : a systematic review of literature
In recent years, gamification, the use of game elements in non-game contexts, has drawn the attention of educators due to the possibility of making learning more motivating and engaging; this led to an increase of research in the field. Despite the availability of literature reviews about gamification and its effects, no work to this date has focused exclusively on Higher Education (HE). Next, worldwide there is an increasing demand for skilled Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) professionals that meet the challenges related to scientific and technological innovations of the 21st Century. This lead to the need of strengthening STEM Higher Education. This brings us to the purpose of this work: presenting a systematic literature review of empirical studies about gamification STEM related Higher Education. This review study started from a systematic mapping design of 'Web of Science' articles, with following inclusion criteria: empirical gamification studies set up in HE, published between 2000 and 2016; focusing on undergraduate or graduate students; in the STEM knowledge field, and set up in authentic settings. An initial search resulted in 562 potentially relevant articles. After applying all selection criteria, only 18 studies could be retained. 12 additional articles were included by analyzing references from earlier literature reviews, resulting in 30 studies to be included. Analysis results show how a combination of game elements (e.g. leaderboards, badges, points and other combinations) positively affects students' performance, attendance, goal orientation and attitude towards mostly computer science related subjects. The analysis results also point at a lack of studies in certain STEM areas, a lack of studies that identify the particular game element associated with the positive differential impact on student performance; a lack of validated psychometric measurements, and lack of focus on student variables that could/should be taken into account as mediating/moderating variables clarifying the impact of gamification in the HE focus on STEM learning and teaching
SIMNET: simulation-based exercises for computer net-work curriculum through gamification and augmented reality
Gamification and Augmented Reality techniques, in recent years, have tackled many subjects and environments. Its implementation can, in particular, strengthen teaching and learning processes in schools and universities. Therefore, new forms of knowledge, based on interactions with objects, contributing game, experimentation and collaborative work. Through the technologies mentioned above, we intend to develop an application that serves as a didactic tool, giving support in the area of Computer Networks. This application aims to stand out in simulated controlled environments to create computer networks, taking into ac-count the necessary physical devices and the different physical and logical topologies. The main goal is to enrich the studentsâ learning experiences and contrib-ute to teacher-student interaction, through collaborative learning provided by the tool, minimizing the need for expensive equipment in learning environments.Universidad de MĂĄlaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional AndalucĂa Tech
Third International Workshop on Gamification for Information Retrieval (GamifIR'16)
Stronger engagement and greater participation is often crucial
to reach a goal or to solve an issue. Issues like the emerging
employee engagement crisis, insufficient knowledge sharing,
and chronic procrastination. In many cases we need and
search for tools to beat procrastination or to change peopleâs
habits. Gamification is the approach to learn from often fun,
creative and engaging games. In principle, it is about understanding
games and applying game design elements in a
non-gaming environments. This offers possibilities for wide
area improvements. For example more accurate work, better
retention rates and more cost effective solutions by relating
motivations for participating as more intrinsic than conventional
methods. In the context of Information Retrieval (IR)
it is not hard to imagine that many tasks could benefit from
gamification techniques. Besides several manual annotation
tasks of data sets for IR research, user participation is important
in order to gather implicit or even explicit feedback
to feed the algorithms. Gamification, however, comes with
its own challenges and its adoption in IR is still in its infancy.
Given the enormous response to the first and second
GamifIR workshops that were both co-located with ECIR,
and the broad range of topics discussed, we now organized
the third workshop at SIGIR 2016 to address a range of
emerging challenges and opportunities
Having Fun in Learning Formal Specifications
There are many benefits in providing formal specifications for our software.
However, teaching students to do this is not always easy as courses on formal
methods are often experienced as dry by students. This paper presents a game
called FormalZ that teachers can use to introduce some variation in their
class. Students can have some fun in playing the game and, while doing so, also
learn the basics of writing formal specifications in the form of pre- and
post-conditions. Unlike existing software engineering themed education games
such as Pex and Code Defenders, FormalZ takes the deep gamification approach
where playing gets a more central role in order to generate more engagement.
This short paper presents our work in progress: the first implementation of
FormalZ along with the result of a preliminary users' evaluation. This
implementation is functionally complete and tested, but the polishing of its
user interface is still future work
The Virtual Runner Learning Game
A learning game has been developed which allows learners to study and learn about the significance of three important variables in human physiology (lactate, glycogen, and hydration) and their influence on sports performance during running. The player can control the speed of the runner, and as a consequence the resulting physiological processes are simulated in real-time. The performance degradation of the runner due to these processes requires that different strategies for pacing the running speed are applied by the player, depending on the total length of the run. The game has been positively evaluated in a real learning context of academic physiology teaching
Math empowerment: a multidisciplinary example to engage primary school students in learning mathematics
This paper describes an educational project conducted in a primary school in Italy (Scuola Primaria Alessandro Manzoni at Mulazzano, near to Milan). The school requested our collaboration to help improve upon the results achieved on the National Tests for Mathematics, in which students, aged 7, registered performances lower than the national average the past year.
From January to June, 2016, we supported teachers, providing them with information, tools and methods to increase their pupilsâ curiosity and passion for mathematics. Mixing our different experiences and competences (instructional design and gamification, information technologies and psychology) we have tried to provide a broader spectrum of parameters, tools and keys to understand how to achieve an inclusive approach that is âpersonalisedâ to each student.
This collaboration with teachers and students allowed us to draw interesting observations about learning styles, pointing out the negative impact that standardized processes and instruments can have on the selfâesteem and, consequently, on student performance.
The goal of this programme was to find the right learning levers to intrigue and excite students in mathematical concepts and their applications.
Our hypothesis is that, by considering the learning of mathematics as a continuous process, in which students develop freely through their own experiments, observations, involvement and curiosity, students can achieve improved results on the National Tests (INVALSI).
This paper includes results of a survey conducted by children ââAbout Me and Mathematicsâ
Connecting Undergraduate Students as Partners in Computer Science Teaching and Research
Connecting undergraduate students as partners can lead to the enhancement of the undergraduate experience and allow students to see the different sides of the university. Such holistic perspectives may better inform academic career choices and postgraduate study. Furthermore, student involvement in course development has many potential benefits. This paper outlines a framework for connecting research and teaching within Computer Science- though this is applicable across other disciplines. Three case studies are considered to illustrate the approach. The first case study involves students in their honoursâ stage (level 6, typically 3rd year) project, the second an undergraduate intern between stages 5 and 6, and finally, a MSc (level 7) project. All three case studies have actively involved students in core parts of the Universityâs teaching and research activities, producing usable software systems to support these efforts. We consider this as a continuing engagement process to enhance the undergraduate learning experience within Computer Science
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