Gamification, flipped learning: what are they?

One of the most important concepts in teaching is creating opportunities to make thinking visible. When teachers can really see the thinking of their students, they can provide these students with the support and encouragement they need to be successful.

I truly believe in this statement regardless of learning strategies educators are willing to use.
Tech integration is just a tool to support the students’ Learning.

Games, game-based and gamification

As I teach K1 and K2, I cannot see my classroom without games.
First of all games are fun! Then learning is fun. Thus games have a place in my classroom.
I know however that games tend to be less present in my older grades, French classes.

[caption id="attachment_407" align="aligncenter" width="300"] flickr photo by Christos Tsoumplekas (Back again!) https://flickr.com/photos/tsoumplekas/4989423482 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) license[/caption]

I find that just so easy to play with the youngest. Everything and anything is a reason to play. With just few vocabulary cards or toys, we can play guessing games. And before they get bored with the guessing game, we play to “trick” our assistant (Ms Agnes is the best person to work with), and then one of the students becomes the master of the game and it goes on and on. And then, we can start a memory game, or we make a contest by dividing the class into two groups and the one who remembers the most words is the winner…

In all the examples I just gave, I don’t use any technology, no computer, no laptop, no tablet, no interactive whiteboard. Yes, I could and I probably should.

But the truth is computer games or video games are really not my things. Don’t get me wrong! I like playing, I like playing with a computer but I don’t like playing games on computer or console. I tried several times to play and I’ve always found that terribly annoying.

Having said that, I understand the philosophy behind game-based learning.

Challenge is a powerful motivator when students take on tasks they find meaningful and, through their efforts and perseverance, succeed
explained Judy Willis

But what is gamification?

Gamification is a word than I’ve never heard before starting Coetail.

I found this infographic very useful to understand the difference between game, game-based and gamification.

https://elearninginfographics.com/games-vs-game-based-learning-vs-gamification-infographic/

I found this strategy so genius! It would work very well in a language classroom as what I want is having the students use the target language.

But the thing with gamifictaion is where do I start?

In this video, the gamification guru, Yu-Kai Chou explained how gamification can improve our world.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5Qjuegtiyc[/youtube]

No matter how exciting and interesting gamification can be, I ‘d leave this for later. I’m sure that soon I’d like to give a try. For now, just to think about playing with a computer makes me yawn!

Reverse instruction, flipped classroom and vodcasting

[caption id="attachment_404" align="aligncenter" width="300"] flickr photo by Shht! https://flickr.com/photos/shht/13556054634 shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license[/caption]

Again, I’ve never heard of these words before Coetail. And again, I found these theories very clever. More than once I imagined something that would look like this: I would give my students a list of vocabulary (we need to know words to express ourselves). They would learn it at home. And then in class, we would practice and play with it in a more meaningful way. But I’ve never done it as I’m still wondering what parents would say about this teaching practice.

But flipped classroom is more than watching lectures at home.

Ramsey Musallam said

The flipped classroom is a simple concept that needs no title. Good teaching, regardless of discipline, should always limit passive transfer of knowledge in class, and promote learning environments built on the tenants of inquiry, collaboration and critical thinking. We, as educators, must strive to guide students through perplexing situations, and more importantly, work with one another to develop the pedagogical skills to do so. Keeping this in mind, good teaching comes in many forms, and the flipped-classroom mentality can be one of many solutions for educators.

In flipped learning, a response to 5 common criticisms gives a great insight of what is reverse instruction. No, it’s not just for math or science. However I’m not sure that it would work well with my early year students.