Gamified learning platforms are a great way to motivate students and lessen the burden on teachers.
Two of the most innovative platforms employ the power of gamification to stimulate learners, while also providing teachers with a comprehensive view of the development of each student and the entire class. Caroline Smrstik Gentner talks with innovative people in Sapientia and Siyavula in Brazil as well as Siyavula within South Africa about these platforms.
Caroline Smrstik-Gentner: Games are a well-known tool for motivating young people to complete more work. What was the motivation behind you to create your platform?
Mark Horner, Siyavula (South Africa) More than 60% of the students who attend schools in South Africa go to schools which have extremely low costs or even no fee at all and do not have the proper resources. The project started by putting textbooks on the internet so that teachers and students could use the books for free. To enhance the content, we also added interactive questions as well as a basic evaluation. Siyavula is utilized in math, physics, and chemical sciences, and focuses on students of all levels. We made use of the database of questions to help additional functions, including analytics.
Jorge Elo, Sapientia (Brazil) as a teacher, I noticed that students had lost their interest in learning, just as they were preparing for entrance exams to universities. We developed Sapientia to address this issue. Sapientia platform to help to improve student engagement by using gaming. It isn’t based on books, like Siyavula is, but it’s in line with the national common-core curriculum and can be utilized in any topic.
CSG: What’s the most attractive aspect of your invention?
JE: The education system in Brazil is extremely traditional, and teachers are in opposition to technology. Gaming and teens are an ideal match! We visited students directly to present our games and challenges, and they contacted their teachers regarding using it in the classroom.
Alexandra Trinder Smith, Siyavula Teaching teachers to South Africa to new things can be a challenge because they are overwhelmed by the requirements on their schedules. As an educator in the public system, I can understand. When they do try our system, the experiences are extremely positive since they see it as an actual way to ease their burdens from day to day.
“We reached out directly to students through our games platform and challenges. They also asked their teachers to use it in their classrooms. “
CSG: What parts of games do you find most stimulating for students? Do you distinguish between the performance of individual students as well as the entire class?
MH: When students reach an achievement, they receive an Siyavula certificate can be printed out. We also provide our information to scholarship companies as well as universities and colleges, allowing students who have made the ability to make progress in their studies to continue. The features of our system for teachers has grown to include a complete learning management system. Teachers can run classes, shift learners around, and monitor analyses for all their classes.
J.E. Sapientia is a school that operates on a points system called a points. Students begin the school year with a set amount of points. This number can be increased or decreased based on their engagement and conduct in the class. They compete against one another and can give points to the classmate. This encourages a sense of collective accountability. We can observe the individual students develop their academic and social abilities.
CSG Do you think your system will help increase the amount of study students complete?
MH: I’m not certain the situation in Brazil however there is a problem in South Africa only about five to seven percent of students are able to complete some homework by themselves. With Siyavula’s regular campaigns with leaderboards and special badges, we could raise that percentage to upwards of 40 to 50 percent participation.
Jess: We’ve found that 90% of our students complete more homework and do more work in school once they have started using Sapientia. We have also collected preliminary research that shows the students are determined to take university entrance exams and to continue their studies.
“In South Africa only about five to seven percent of students do a reasonable amount of schoolwork on their own.”
CSG Which are your next steps you should take?
Ariel Roque, Sapientia: We are developing our analytics. We have a working prototype, but we are planning to launch more dashboards for teachers similar to those in Siyavula. We’re also expanding training for teachers. After students have persuaded teachers to use Sapientia, we’re introducing to teachers how gamification can be used within the school setting.
MH in South Africa, 80 percent of the fourth graders and beyond are taught English. In countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Zambia, and Botswana, in which English is widely spoken and taught, they can benefit from the educational materials we’ve created. We might begin a translation initiative within the next year or, as a result, with the intention of making the infrastructure to handle and translate our material into other languages more efficiently.
HundrED is a non-profit, non-governmental organization with its headquarters in Helsinki, Finland. HundrED explores and discovers effective and sustainable innovation within K12 education. For 2021 HundrEd collaborated with Jacobs Foundation on the Spotlight on Formative Assessment.
This Spotlight focused on identifying 10-15 educational innovations that encourage the consistent use of formative tests to guide the teaching and learning process. A total of 129 innovators from 42 nations have submitted their ideas to be considered.
