Look at students nowadays, and you will see that they spend hours of their lives trying to solve complicated puzzles in their video games, but when it comes to a simple textbook lesson, they get bored and are stuck. It is not their brains that are the problem, but our teaching methods. Conventional education tends to be based on a memorize-to-test type, and the students are scared of making errors. At school, one can be sure that a mistake is a poorer grade and the story is over. This has instilled fear among most learners, such that they are mere spectators who only wait to be told what to do rather than being proactive. We are witnessing a colossal disconnect between the dead classroom and the swiftly evolving world, which favors the daring and the learner who does not fear to fail.
The trick to this correction does not lie in the introduction of games in the classroom, but in Game-Thinking. Consider it: why does a player continue trying when he loses a level? They are not afraid of losing since they understand that it is only a lesson that they learn how to win next time.
To put this in education is to make lessons a challenge with varying degrees. We do not have to read a long chapter about electricity; instead, we begin with a small problem: How can you make this bulb light up? In case the student wins, he or she goes to the next level. Such a method develops interest and makes the student develop his/her own knowledge. This is what is needed in the future. Information can be accessed with a single press of the button in the era of AI, yet the ability to be versatile and solve problems is what counts.
Game-thinking will educate the students on how to break down an issue, establish a strategy, and transform it in case it fails. It transforms learning from a heavy burden into an exploration mission, which develops logical thinking easily.
The majority of scientific ideas remain nothing more than words on paper unless you apply your hands to them. One can not really learn how to program a robot or design a solar power system by reading. It is not just a traditional classroom, as it does not provide students with an opportunity to fail.
That is the reason why it is so significant to use practical, project-based learning. Real learning occurs when a student picks up tools, fits parts together, and finds out that the design is not working. It is at that point, the effort to correct the mistake, that makes an engineer or an innovator. True learning occurs in labs and workshops whereby the students construct something by beginning with nothing and trying and failing until they get it right.
LOF connection.
We do not just talk about these things at Lab of Future (LOF), but we live them. We are not going to educate the students about the functioning of a robot, but give them the opportunity to design and code it to accomplish a real-life mission. We make the lab interactive and make it look like a real life mission where the students employ AI, coding, and engineering to actual problem-solving.
We do not do it the same at LOF, as we think that education ought to be an adventure. We combine science and engineering with capabilities of the future, such as critical thinking and adaptability. At our laboratories, the student becomes the hero trying to find the solution, and we give them the newest tech to make it come true. It is not training students to be staff who do mundane jobs, but rather training staff to be tech leaders capable of managing crises in sustainability and automation with an ambitious attitude.
Prospective reflection
The future is not going to wait for people who have got ready answers, it will greet those who understand how to ask the correct questions, and make a second and a third attempt. When we are able to make the process of learning as exciting and encouraging as a game, we will have brought up a generation that does not fear failure, but considers the failure to be a part
of the process to success. The issue is: are we prepared to provide our students with the actual means to create their own future?
