Abstract:

Active learning pedagogy focuses on helping the students to collaborate with each other in order to truly understand the topics rather than simply memorizing them (Ogumtsyan & Ashcroft, 2019). Likewise, Flipped Classroom refers to a teaching method in which students use after-class time to independently learn a new course by normally watching teaching videos and completing learning tasks to absob and internalize new knowledge (Zhao & Zhang, 2019). Afterwards, in class, the teacher encourages interaction with each other, cooperation, sharing and discussions with the aim to check if knowledge was correctly acquiered. Flipped Classroom is considered as one of the most powerful tools of active learning pedagogy significally incrementing learning outcomes and enhancing students’ positive attitudes (Rau et al., 2017).

This scape room gamification technique is based on an interactive and team-based game in which the players are locked in a room and must collaborate to solve different challenges and therefore, try to escape in the room in a limited time (Pérez Vázquez, Gilabert Cerdá & Lledó Carreres, 2019). Going one step further, gamified flipped classroom means that some game-based elements (as for example scores, points or badges) are introduced into the flipped classroom pedagogy normally for an evaluation purpose (Zainuddin, 2018).

Currently, the use of educational escape rooms is becoming increasingly popular due to its benefits in active learning. The objective of this research lies in evaluating the benefits obtained from using these dynamics in class from an ambidextrous perspective. On the one hand, the challenges to be solved by the students are related with the learning objectives of the topic. On the other hand, an important range of skills and abilities are also trained on this pedagogical methodology, which include: problem-solving abilities, creativity enhancement, negotiation, team-working and leadership skills, among others. Therefore, it may be used as a complete evaluation tool for hard and soft skills. Finally, in this study we will explain how to use these assessment practices to students so that their performance and motivation for learning increases.

References:
[1] Pérez Vázquez, E., Gilabert Cerdá, A., & Lledó Carreres, A. (2019). Gamificación en la educación universitaria: El uso del escape room como estrategia de aprendizaje.
[2] Rau, M. A., Kennedy, K., Oxtoby, L., Bollom, M., & Moore, J. W. (2017). Unpacking “active learning”: A combination of flipped classroom and collaboration support is more effective but collaboration support alone is not. Journal of Chemical Education, 94(10), 1406-1414.
[3] Ogumtsyan, A., & Ashcroft, J. (2019). Increasing Student Success in Stem Using a Flipped Class Pedagogy.
[4] Zainuddin, Z. (2018). Students' learning performance and perceived motivation in gamified flipped-class instruction. Computers & Education, 126, 75-88.
[5] Zhao, S., & Zhang, X. (2019). University Flipped Class Model in China. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 7(3), 518-524.

Keywords:

Active learning, gamification, flipped classroom, escape room.