Got Bored with your Online Classes? No more. CUSAT to Gamify Them

KOCHI:
VHSE students will be gaming with knowledge instead of attending their boring online classes. They will learn while playing games. The CUSAT intervention in making VHSE online classes more interesting is a collaborative effort with   Directorate of General Education-VHSE and CUSAT School of Management Studies. Dr. Manu Melwin Joy, Assistant Professor will be conducting training programme aimed to improve  learner engagement of online classes by applying the possibilities Gamification. the three-day training programs for VHSC teachers free of cost as a part of the CSR activity of School of Management Studies was inaugurated by Dr. P.G. Sankaran, CUSAT Pro-Vice Chancellor.

“New age pedagogical techniques like gamification will help in increasing the engagement levels of online classes and improve the learning outcomes by eradicating distractions and boredom”, opined Pro- Vice Chancellor Dr. P.G. Sankaran in his inaugural speech.  “The pandemic threw life out of gear for everyone, including school teachers.  Making a shift from traditional to online teaching was a challenge to the educators as the suddenness with which they were plunged into this new mode of teaching meant that they went into it with little preparation. So, initiatives to equip teachers to digitally be competent to excel in classrooms is the need of the hour”, said Jeevan Babu K. IAS, Director of General Education, Kerala, by participating in the inaugural function.

Anil Kumar T.V., Deputy Director, VHSE, Dr. Jagathiraj V.P., Director, SMS, CUSAT and Dr. Manu Melwin Joy, Coordinator and Chief resource person participated in the inauguration session. More batches will be included as per the requirement. Training programs will be carried out in evening without affecting the normal work routine of school teachers. All the sessions are designed in a highly interactive and gamified manner so that teachers will get a feel of how to integrate gamification into online teaching. Apart from online training, teachers will be provided with individual hands-on training on gamifying their classroom with the help of assignments and live simulations. Based on the participation and involvement, 10 teachers will be given the best participant award during the valedictory function.

For each batch, 90 teachers from the list of more than 7000 VHSC teachers in the state will be included based on self-nomination. Currently,
Directorate of General Education has scheduled seven batches in the months of September and October. Future batches will be scheduled
based on the requirement raised by the teachers. According to Ranjith P., Programme Coordinator, National Service Scheme, Directorate of General Education-VHSC, the program is getting phenomenal response from teachers will all the 7 batches being full in just six hours of publishing the event.

“All play and no work  will bring out the best in every individual, improve teamwork, bonding and one will enjoy every minute  of their work life”, said Dr. Manu Melwin Joy. His research focus includes Gamification, Game based Learning, Serious games and Game thinking. He has completed certification in Gamification from University of Pennsylvania and Design Thinking from University of Virginia. Apart from publishing articles in accredited journals, he has authored seven books with the most recent one titled “PLAYBOUR – Gamification for employee engagement”. He has handled more than 55 international and national sessions on gamification for corporates such as IBM, The Hindu Group, The Federal Bank, Apollo Tyres etc and educational institutions like University of Technology and Applied Sciences (Oman), Princess Nourah Bint Abdul Rahman University ( Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), international University of Humanities and Development, Turkmenistan, Alatoo International University, Kyrgyzstan to name a few .