Conference Proposal

Organization: International Congress on Education and Learning
Website: http://oneducationandlearning.com/2020-congress/call-for-papers/
Date: June 24-26, 2020
Call for Proposals Deadline: May 10, 2020

Poster Proposal

Does Gamification Impact the Development of Grit?

Recent studies on classroom engagement have revealed an alarming decline among students from elementary school to high school, with one Gallup poll showing an up to 42% decline as students go from fifth to eleventh grade. Education researchers have identified a surfeit of reasons why students become increasingly disengaged as they navigate the school system, but effective solutions have been harder to find. In recent years, an increasingly popular strategy that has emerged to improve classroom engagement is gamification, which utilizes gaming elements in non-gaming contexts. Educators who take this approach believe it motivates their students by harnessing the kind of interest and excitement that games can inspire. By using game elements, like badges, experience points, or avatars, for example, they hope students will have a more tangible means of tracking their progress towards goals and have a greater personal investment in the educational process as a whole.

While decades of research about teaching and learning have advised educators against relying on extrinsic motivators, gamification works, nonetheless, by expanding the external reward system. Does gamification in the classroom, then, result in weaker intrinsic motivation and impede students’ ability to develop grit? This is a particularly important question because recent studies have identified grit – the ongoing demonstration of passion and perseverance toward a goal despite significant obstacles and distractions – as one of the most reliable predictors of success both in college and later in life. If gamification does indeed increase classroom engagement and content acquisition (preliminary research results have been mixed), then does it do so at the expense of something critical for students’ long-term success? This poster seeks to address this question by providing an overview of gamification in the classroom and by examining how it impacts the development of grit in elementary students.

Global Theme

Education in the Context of Global Migration

In 2017, there were a total of 258 million migrants out of a total worldwide population of 7.5 billion people. The worldwide population of migrant children under the age of 19 has grown from 30 million in 1990 to 36 million in 2017. Who are these migrant children and why do they migrate? There are complex reasons why children are migrants. For example, some migrant children are seeking asylum while others are seeking refugee status, and then there are the millions of children of migrant workers. Still other migrant children are educational migrants sent by their families to study abroad. While much research focuses on transnational migration, there is considerable migration of children and families within many countries from rural to urban centers due to urbanization and industrialization. In all, children around the world are migrating for a wide range of diverse reasons.

There are a host of policy, programmatic, and service challenges facing governments at the national, regional, and local level to address the needs of migrant children. One of these concerns has to do with the economic well-being of migrant children and their families. While migrants have generally, very high rates of labor force participation, they nonetheless, often work for lower wages and have less income than native-born citizens. Migrant children in these families are more likely to be poor, experience food insecurity, have less or inadequate health care, and live in crowded or unsafe housing. Not the least of these challenges is that of providing educational programs and services for migrant children. Effective educational programs and services for migrant children is an economic imperative. The more successful migrant children are academically in school, the more likely they will be successful in future employment and in upward social-class mobility thus, contributing the economic well-being and social fabric of the state and the nation. While the economic well-being of migrant families and their children is of concern, other factors associated with race, ethnicity, gender, religion, and language acquisition, may also affect the educational attainment of migrant children. Addressing the educational needs of migrant children will depend on the local context and the particular characteristics of the migrant population of students.

In this edition of the Congress, we especially welcome research papers, policy papers, and presentations related to a broad range of questions and topics associated with the education of migrant children. What are the contemporary theories, theoretical paradigms, and/or educational practices relevant to the education of migrant children? What are legal, policy, and procedural issues at the national, state, and local level related to migrant children? What are the pedagogical best practices associated with the education of migrant children? What are the issues related to technology, technology access, and social media and the education of migrant children? What are the preparation, training, and professional development needs of administrators, teachers, and staff in the education of migrant children? How can families and communities contribute to the education of migrant children? What are the political, economic, and social implications in the education of migrant children? We also welcome research papers, policy papers, and presentations related to the other strands of the Congress.

Themes