The topic of my proposal is to introduce gamification into classrooms across America. According to the National Center for Education, high school graduation rates reached as low as 54% in Nevada. An average of 65% drop off rate in schools across America (based on a 2014 statistic). Of course, this is the lowest common denominator, yet in the words of George W. Bush, “No child left behind.” Students are simply losing focus in the classroom. From a talk given from Sir Ken Robinson on “Changing Education Paradigms,” Mr. Robinson stated that, “Children are living in the most intensive stimulating period in the history of Earth.” Now, Mr. Robinson is arguing that standardized testing is unnecessary and that ADHD might not be as prevalent as…show more content… I was able to find a few examples regarding gamification in the workplace, which I still read over. After reading these articles I learned that gamification shouldn’t really be used in a collaborative environment since it encourages competition. This makes sense, the last think I would want during a group project is our classmates fighting about who put in the most effort to gain the most experience. Yet, I can see how this could still work out. In a classroom you could incorporate a party system for a group project in which XP is shared amongst the group members. This is just an idea though. The specific source I will be assessing is a blog post from Tophat by Tiffany Ford in 2015. This was the only article I could find regarding gamification in a classroom environment. While it is simply a pros/cons list, I believe I’ll be able to form a counterargument based on the information in this post. The writer of the article included sources for most of her arguments, which I will look over as well. One argument is that we are glorifying a lack of attention span by giving it special treatment. The text states that if gamification is not introduced to other types of education, the dissonance could prove to be frustrating. While I agree that we shouldn’t be encouraging lack of attention span, I believe that a change needs to be made since attention span is at the moment lower. Regardless of what the
