Transcriber: Shreya Arora Reviewer: Taher Koja
We live in a society where academics seem to be completely revolved around numbers.
It's all about getting good grades or perfect test scores.
The definition of learning for
a majority of students right now is to memorize known content simply from
textbooks or teacher lectures and apply them on standardized examinations.
Most students study to get good grades rather than to actually internalize
the knowledge. This leads to stressful academic environments where students
study in a highly competitive atmosphere just to get a good grade.
I've seen people go out party for a week straight and cram everything
the night before a test and still get a perfect score.
But why? Relationships between teachers and students can be
an unintended catalyst for procrastination.
Obviously, teachers are way more qualified to educate than students.
Don’t think, I am questioning their ability,
but sometimes I feel like other students have the ability to sympathize.
They are in one another's shoes and they go through the same thing.
So in summary, students think alike.
My definition of learning is a little different.
It's important for students to apply what they learn into projects.
This allows students to own the knowledge
and actually internalize everything.
But this isn’t possible through our current education system.
To find a solution, I started with gaming. Specifically,
I explored the idea of gamification. Gamification as a theory were enjoyable.
game based elements are intertwined
and integrated into less attractive contexts, such as studying.
The purpose of gamification is to alleviate
the boredom of these activities through game features in hopes of provoking
similar emotions as playing a video game.
I started to notice how this could benefit our learning.
When I started to see correlations between my career as a game developer
and a student, I have been a freelance game developer for almost six years.
In the beginning, I didn't apply my knowledge to education.
I simply allowed my creativity to control what I made.
But soon I discovered how powerful this tool is.
When gamification started to shape my educational philosophy.
My first project experimenting with this theory was
a game called Infection Simulator.
It's served as a micro simulation of
a pandemic where players must practice social distancing,
wear masks and prevent a pandemic from spreading by
a randomly chosen infected player.
I created this game because I noticed the limitations to how information about
the pandemic is given. The only viable options
were either reading the news or watching boring articles,
and what all framed for adults.
But I felt the importance for children to know as well and identifying this problem
I created Infection Simulator with
the purpose to give our target audience of young students
a first exploration into a pandemic through simulation,
so they were given basic education of measures
on preventing infections from spreading.
Although we hit thousands of visits and one month and consequently won
an award, that isn't a result, I'm here to talk about.
We have mixed reviews, though we have players who fully understood
the intent behind the game. Here are some screenshots of what others said.
What was shocking was that some people thought the game was mocking
the pandemic and were encouraging people to spread the virus.
Personally, I was ashamed of myself when I saw the comment,
where one player's brother wanted to cough on others.
After playing the game, I was frustrated, of course,
considering the game was based on a highly sensitive topic.
People were going to have mixed feelings.
However, I never anticipated people would get an entirely different message
out of the game, but even worst,
I didn't know what I did wrong for this to even happen.
Reflecting critically, I soon realized this was the exact problem
I mentioned about our education system.
I standardize the way people received information and expected them to receive
the exact impression I aimed to convey.
The message I wanted to convey to the players wasn't what they received.
But in retrospect, this was the problem our education system had.
Students were receiving education.
Where were we robotically memorize content just to be assessed with
the standardized exam. The content educators provided was different from how
we actually consume knowledge. In hindsight, I felt like a hypocrite.
I was basically adding on to the very problem I suggested.
But instead of shutting down the game and giving up,
I took it as a learning experience.
That is the essence of what learning is oftentimes
as educators, we make a lot of assumptions presuming mentees receive our
intended message. We could lecture for hours and hours and throw them
a test at the end of the week. But that isn't what learning is.
And I indirectly experience that through Infection Simulator.
I realized that learning is a two way experience where students also have
a role. Students must learn at their own pace,
and getting lectured and actually consuming knowledge were two different
things. I wanted to flip the education model
and allow students to pursue personalized learning,
noticing this was a problem,
students must be given the opportunity to apply what they learn more dynamic,
whether it’s to create a project, incubate a startup or non-profit,
or simply shift their ways of thinking to ensure they own that knowledge.
Identifying this, I wanted to provide this environment for students.
So with co-founders, I founded a startup called Lessun.
The whole purpose of this company is to serve as
an academic skill change platform for all students worldwide.
Going deeper into this idea of personalized learning,
I soon discovered that every student had their own learning shortcuts.
For me, I had my own shortcut to solve specific math equations rather than using
what the textbook encouraged us to.
The epiphany I had was how cool would it be if we could nurture
a community where every student shared their tips and succeeded all together?
And this goes into my proposed solution.
Our education model must be flipped so that learning is student initiated
and student centered. Schools must be
an environment where students can freely experiment
and are supported when they want to initiate projects based
on what they learn. But unfortunately,
this isn't a sandbox game where I could change whatever I want to in hindsight.
Our education system won't change even when efforts of making a company
or people actively advocating continues. It's all up to us students.
For me, I used what I learned as a game developer to create
a startup in hopes to promote collaborative learning. The solution..
The solution is for all students to approach learning more personally
and pursue passions that you develop with what you learn in the classroom.
Learning should be a collaborative journey where students consume
the knowledge or given the environment to apply it
and actually follow their passions.
This is how I visualize the future of education and as ironic as it sounds.
It started with playing and making video games. Thank you.