Developing competencies through flow, gamification and cultural integration: an analysis of the potential of games in teaching/learning

Abstract

Much has been done to recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on school and university education, both in filling gaps in learning and in social integration and motivation of students post-pandemic. The need to transition from conventional teaching to remote learning has led students and teachers in a spiral of evolution in the development of digital skills due to the urgent adaptability required by the situation. The search for new technologies and didactics that seemed difficult at the time because many were not yet expecting such a sudden change, now takes advantage of that experience to create projects and courses that allow for accelerated recovery and thus transform what was once a complicated task into a new perspective on teaching and learning. One of these ways is the use of epistemic games and gamification to maintain 'flow'. Flow is a combination of skill development through challenges and the pleasure of completing tasks. In this work, we will discuss a project that, with the union of remote and face-to-face teaching & learning, allowed university students to use the knowledge received during an intensive course on environmental radiation to design an escape room-style game with the aim of teaching students at other levels of education. CERAMUG, a Blended Intensive Programme (BIP) in partnership with ERASMUS+, aimed at two-way learning, to learn to use specific instruments for measuring natural environmental radiation and to teach, through a game, the existence of this natural radiation in order to inform and raise awareness of high school students on the subject. The aim of this course was to promote the development of competencies that allow students to succeed in their future professional challenges. The impact of the project is not only the innovative experience for students to learn specialized nuclear measurement techniques, but also to encourage other employability competencies and digital skills necessary for their careers, as well as promoting integration among students from different cultures and countries.