Learning Can Be Fun and Games

Christina Driver; Cindy Davis

It is a recognised phenomenon within learning and teaching literature, that students entering courses with new and challenging content (e.g. research methods and statistic courses) may feel unmotivated, unenthused and display high levels of anxiety regarding the course content. Literature indicates that effective teaching for such anxiety provoking courses should: 1.Facilitate student engagement through active and fun learning strategies 2.Provide real world examples to apply and contextualise content 3.Help students develop coping strategies to overcome anxiety 4.Provide a safe, supportive environment to empower students to engage in higher cognitive skills such as critical and evaluative thinking, and enable effective life-long learning. Royse and Newton (2007) reported that games have been used to inspire and motivate students as well as promote student engagement. Games in the classroom can be used to ensure frequent and immediate feedback, allowing for instant gratification catering for the shortened attention span students have in the current climate Jaffe, 2011). According to Jaffe (2011) many experienced educators have found the use of games in their face-to-face classroom teaching helps to sustain student interest with the topic content. In order to incorporate effective and fun strategies to alleviate student anxiety, and successfully provide a safe and supportive learning environment, Kahoot, a fun pub-trivia style game, was utilized in PSY200 and other psychology courses. The quiz was displayed on the main screen whilst students answer the questions from their own mobile device. Students watching the lecture at home could also join in and feel part of the activity. Each week at the start of PSY200 lectures, Kahoot quizzes were used to test their knowledge from the previous week and introduce new material to scaffold their learning for the current lecture. This content focussed game whilst being constructively aligned to the assessment tasks and criteria, allowed students to actively engage in the content in a fun and light hearted way. Kahoot activities helped reinforced the content, gave students ample opportunity to practice MCQs regularly, and was designed specifically to give instant feedback on their knowledge. The quizzes highlighted areas of content that needed more understanding, along with providing positive reinforcement to areas of successful understanding. This activity was also differentiated to cater for those that enjoy the challenge and hint of competitiveness, by answering as quickly as they could and being rewarded with extra points. Conversely, students could opt to engage in the game anonymously and test their knowledge at their own pace. After each question the game reveals the correct answer and subsequently I engaged the students in discussion as to why a specific answer was correct/ incorrect. Strategies for integrated this technology in other courses as well as student feedback will be discussed.

Learning Can Be Fun and Games

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