The role of pedagogy and continuous assessment in game-based learning

This research is grounded in the issues of educating children living in remote and conflict areas, with a particular focus on innovative approaches to access via online and distance learning using ICT. Educational technology often focuses on giving resources and support for use by teachers, working within existing curricula and with a clear focus on evaluation. What does this mean for a situation where a teacher is unavailable, or unqualified? Is it possible to deliver the support professional teachers give within a digital learning environment? Can we evaluate children’s progress? And how do we use this information to help children when they do not know how to continue? ELearning Sudan (ELS) was developed as a game that enables children living in remote communities in Sudan aged 7-9, to autonomously learn mathematics covering the formal Accelerated Learning Programme (ALP) curriculum of three years. ELS is now in its second phase, with research from the first phase (and to date in the second) showing that these children were able to learn faster and achieve better results using the mathematics game than those enrolled in traditional education. The six-month pilot also showed that children can stay motivated over a longer period of time. Continuous assessment ensured that children could only progress to a next 'level' when they had mastered the previous one. Autonomous learning requires a specific pedagogical approach for children to be able to learn. This paper will describe how children were stimulated to engage actively with the game, and what the role of continuous assessment was to achieve this