Engaging Learners Using Game Based Learning

"I am in Grade IX at Sat Paul Mittal School, Ludhiana, Punjab, India. I really feel proud that I have trained 1000s of teachers and students across the globe and they are further training more. I am the winner of the UNESCO Worldwide youth Multimedia Competition, Rex Karamaveer Bronze Medal Awardee, Global E-Innovation Award Winner, Youngest Global Juror, SDGsChildren Amabassador India and I have spoken at numerous platforms as UNESCO, Microsoft EduDays2019, Young Innovators Summit, Asia Berlin Summit and Adobe Education Summit on the power of STEM and Game based learning. So I will be talking and sharing the student’s perspective that how we can engage the students using game-based learning Game based learning helps in:- • Deeper Classroom engagement and interaction • Understanding about abstract & difficult concepts • Discover and learn • Objects modelling • Can work with the help of Android and iOS phones I love to play games, be it on computers, physical or mental games. It means that the human mind loves to play games. And I am sure that you will agree with me. So I will be discussing how a game called Minecraft is able to support #SDG4-Quality Education. Education impacts on the whole material and spiritual life of humans. There improving quality education motivates the development of the country and contributes to fulfill the UNSDGs goals. This is the structure of the lesson plan which our teacher use and in our school minecraft and other gamification applications is used in each part of the lesson. Structure of the Lesson plan:- • Introduction • Development • Summation • Evaluation • Reflection Million dollar question – Why minecraft? I can tell through my experience that anything explained through a visual story has a long lasting effect and is imprinted on our mind for a long time as compared to the routine teaching. It helps in engaging students by enhancing their creativity. It helps in problem solving with critical thinking. Most importantly the need of the hour is collaboration, like during this pandemic time Minecraft has helped students to connect virtually in groups and make projects. Team work is very important as it teaches us empathy. It helps to step into the other’s shoes and understand their perspective. Minecraft helps in student engagement, creative self-exploration, collaborative inquiry and learning, self-motivation, deep learning and digital citizenship. Here are a few snippets of the lessons that our teachers have used in the classrooms. It is imperative that we students should be taught the essential skills that Is creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration. Minecraft has been used in my School in all part of the Lessons, to introduce, Sum-up, evaluation and reflection like – Area and Volume, Symmetry, Respiratory system, and Cyber Security was a complete Lesson which was made in the form of Game. So it is vital that when you plan a Lesson with Minecraft you should not have a great catch to the lesson because that is actually the catch. Just say that we are going to use Minecraft today and the students are automatically engaged. Gamification in education refers to the introduction of game elements and gameful experiences in the design of learning processes. Impact of Minecraft is huge in Sat Paul Mittal School and I have proved case studies in many subjects integrated with SEL. Download Minecraft:- • https://education.minecraft.net/get-started/download • Minecraft is available here for Windows, Mac and Chrome Books Merge Cube and Paint 3D So Augmented Reality and Virtual reality are the in things in the classrooms to engage students. Merge cube is a Holographic cube which helps to view the objects with 3 D dimension and Paint 3D is one of the application that is available in windows 10 from where we can extract 3D objects. Conclusion: I would like to sum up by going back to the very basic A, B, C. A – Awareness It is very important that we should be aware of the actual need vs expectations of the learners. We need to access and revisit the various initiatives so that we are able to take the initiative that is need based. B-- Building Competencies and Capabilities It is time that teachers MUST incorporate TPACK successfully and schools should be ready to assimilate changes.. There should be scope for improvement and enough room for experimentation, so that children can COMMUNICATE, CO-ORDINATE, COLABORATE and CONNECT. C-- Change: It is time to change. Change is the only constant. A systematic, scientific and structured change is required which will fulfil our aspirations of future ready schools. I am pretty sure that future of technology is robust in the coming years. It is very necessary that before the digitization the people should be ready for the big #EachOneTeachTen Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle and the life of the candle will never be shortened. I believe in Share Learn and Grow . So let’s EachOneTeachTen and empower others. "