Gamified Learning. It sounds like a teacher’s way to trick students into learning (“no really, it’ll be fun!”), but for Ayush Gandhi’s design studio last session, he set out to illustrate that learning can be just that.

The fundamental goal of this spring studio was to help students understand how people learn. For instance, research has shown that people are motivated by either extrinsic or intrinsic factors in their learning journey, and when teaching a new skill, consideration must be made for both kinds of learners—known as universal design.

The studio began by discussing different tools that have been created in education, with a focus on educational games (what Ayush calls a fan favorite for teenagers). “That was the initial exploration of the studio, that it is possible to make learning engaging for the user, based on the different learning factors that motivate them, as well as creating the platforms and tools to help make students ready for the future of education in a tech-heavy world,” he explains.

In the initial ideation round, Ayush found that the students focused too much on the game itself and lost sight of the specific learning objectives—missing the scaffolding structure that would motivate the learning process. Ayush then had the students reverse their thinking.

“First I had them think about the learning objective, and then about what a game could teach through a specific activity,” he shares. “Reversing that process was helpful to teach the MDA framework (mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics) used in much of game design today.”

Next, the students set about building from their learning objective. How can you keep the player engaged and entertained while also ensuring they are achieving the specific learning goal of the project?

The topics students chose for their learning objectives ranged from physics and basic math to personal finance management and a story-building theme designed to practice the creative process. What took this studio a step deeper was that each game had both a digital and physical component. “Each setting in the digital browser could be experimented with in the physical world,” explains Ayush. “This offered a more tangible takeaway from the gamified aspect.”

For instance, in Ball Blast, a game designed to teach basic principles of physics, the students’ physical prototype included adjustable settings for power, mass, air resistance, ground friction, and elasticity.

In it, a device sets the angle of a ball launch using a protractor-shaped mechanism with an elastic. The tension defines the power of the launch, while an obstacle-course-like flow simulates air resistance. The team then experimented with different lubricants for the ball to move across, testing friction.

“In this case, the students had an initial idea which answered all the prompts that the studio is asking for,” he explains. “And because they started building from the first week, it was fully built out by week four.”

For student Nate Davis, he and his studio partner Enzo used a storytelling angle often found in role-playing games to teach elementary-aged students basic math skills.

“It was really fun because I hadn't coded before, and I learned a lot from the feedback we received,” he says. “We started off with just sketches to get a firmer grasp on what we actually wanted to teach, and we really had to think about user design and how our story was communicating our goals.”

Giving students the tools to personalize their own learning can be a very powerful experience, but as a coach, Ayush admits he is constantly iterating his studio methodology—which he credits to the unique eloquence of our design studios. At NuVu, our staff has the ability—and some would say an obligation—to continually improve how and what we teach.

“For example, the pro of a studio like this is when a student is self-motivated, they want to learn and figure out the technical aspects to make it fun for other users—and in that process they also explain it to themselves, so they are themselves learning,” Ayush explains. “But the con can be when they are personalizing their learning so much, they may not be learning how to be in the discomfort of learning together—that personalized experience may take away from collective learning.” This is when a NuVu coach has the opportunity to shift a student’s focus and adjust the studio for a more impactful learning experience.

As a computer science educator, Ayush says his goal is to amplify personalization in the computer science field—just as NuVu celebrates this essence throughout its educational model.