LIGHT-TOUCH GAMIFICATION FOR MATHS IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOL

This Maths is one of the core subjects at primary school, but it can be difficult for a teacher with 25-30 students to cater for the needs of students as well as monitor their progress in a timely manner. This paper shows how light-touch gamification can motivate students to complete all the maths games (exercises) in a set, while at the same time providing the teacher with instant feedback on the students' progress. The students were between 5-6 years of age and a combination of elearning resources and pen and paper were used to monitor the students learning progress on basic mathematical concepts including counting, pattern matching, the number line, the time, more than/less than and ordinals (first, second, last). The students could monitor their progress by seeing if they earned enough stars to get to the gold rosette. They could also see what games they had yet to complete to finish a set. The students were not competing against each other, which is important in a mixed ability group. Another important feature of the elearning resources is the absence of any words. This is useful when there is a difference between a student's language ability and his/her mathematical ability. Often it is difficult for a teacher to gauge a student's understanding of mathematical concepts if the student has reading difficulties, so the use of easy to understand and easy to use software were key design considerations for the elearning resources. While the young age of the students did not really lend itself to some gamification concepts (e.g. opportunities for collaborative problem solving), the use of light-touch gamification (e.g. the progress monitoring, immediate feedback and player control) helped students enjoy using the elearning resources.