UNAIR NEWS – Incorporating games into teaching inherently enhances effective lesson design. In today’s era, games offer numerous positive impacts on improving the quality of education. Contemporary learning theories demand that teachers adapt and develop teaching methods, especially for subjects requiring increased student engagement.
Teachers influence education significantly as mediators of knowledge transfer, need an enhancement of their roles. Observations among elementary school teachers in Candisari, Lamongan, revealed that few are utilizing gamification as a teaching method. Gamification involves applying game design elements to non-game contexts to enhance learning. It is increasingly used to engage millennial students in health education, supplementing traditional teaching methods.
Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR) and UCSI University Malaysia conducted a community service program for the Elementary School Teachers Association in Candisari Village, Sambeng District, Lamongan. This initiative aimed to enhance teachers’ engagement with gamification, focusing on stunting content to improve elementary students’ learning outcomes. The program sought to enable teachers to use gamification in the classroom, allowing students to express their understanding of the material through engaging and motivating activities.
The initial phase of the program took place at UCSI’s Kuala Lumpur campus, featuring a forum group discussion (FGD) with teachers from Kuala Lumpur, who engaged with academic representatives from UCSI and UNAIR. The UNAIR delegation included two lecturers and twelve students from the Faculty of Dental Medicine (FKG). The FGD concluded that both online and offline educational delivery, particularly in areas with limited internet access, requires innovative methods that actively involve students.
In the implementation phase with the Elementary School Teachers Association in Candisari, Sambeng, Lamongan, teachers received training on stunting and practical knowledge necessary to avoid it. An example of gamification designed for elementary students is a snakes and ladders game featuring stunting prevention content.
The community service program employed methods including dissemination, training, mentoring, and implementation. The initial dissemination phase aimed to provide teachers with a foundational understanding before they could develop health topics into gamified content. Subsequently, teachers received training and development materials to create gamified lesson plans.
Mentoring was intended to provide continuous motivation and supervision for teachers, conducted both in-person and online. This included practical training sessions where teachers implemented gamification strategies within groups.
The methodology for gamification in this training focused on delivering health education in the easiest and most enjoyable way, such as modifying traditional games like snakes and ladders to incorporate health education messages. This approach trains students to gain health education knowledge in a fun, physically active manner, fostering healthy competition and classroom camaraderie.
The program expected the teachers in areas with limited internet access can transform any educational content into gamified, enjoyable classroom activities, accelerating student information retention in an easy, cost-effective manner without the need for internet. The collaboration between UNAIR and UCSI University aims to continue developing low-cost educational methods and tools.
Author: Tim Pengabdian Masyarakat UNAIR-UCSI
