Effective Usage of Gamification Techniques to Boost Student Engagement

Engineering Education, Learning Management System, Assessment, Technology, Online Teaching- LearningAs the engineering education fraternity is getting accustomed to the new normal amidst the global COVID- 19 pandemic, online teaching has been gaining much attention in the recent past. While teachers are getting adjusted to this new way of teaching, it is paramount that the teaching-learning process caters to the needs of our millennial learners. Considering all these factors, the teacher must continuously work towards always keeping the students motivated. The authors of this paper brought in a series of innovative gamification constructs throughout a semester across multiple courses to gauge the level of involvement of students during the online lectures as well as the Learning Management System (LMS). The motive was the ensure that the students actively participate in all deliberations, thereby positively impacting the online learning process. The participants of the study were 56 second year Post Graduate students who were undergoing online classes. Several tasks, as well as assessments, were assigned to the students. While doing so, students were introduced to new gamification tools like Mentimeter, Edpuzzle, Kahoot, Quizizz and many more at regular intervals to break the monotony and keep them on their feet waiting for the next task to be performed. This not only meant that the students started participating in the classes more actively but also kept them engaged with a variety of innovative tools. The results clearly showed that the students started learning the concepts better while keeping competitive spirits. When it came to individual activities, there was an urge in students to outperform each other, which meant that the students would go that extra mile to get the things done. At the same time, team tasks had a high level of collaboration resulting in effective learning and building camaraderie. The students prefer learning through multiple sources and multiple platforms. By leveraging technological advancements and bringing in gamification in learning, the overall teaching-learning process gets highly benefited.