**4.2 Eight maxims for brain-friendly teaching via gamified instruction**

Murphy's 50 maxims supporting NeuroELT encompass the primary features for a brain-friendly classroom with regard to English language teaching. For the purposes of this chapter, 8 key dicta as shown in **Table 2** below have been selected which underpin strong educational principles that support brain-friendly learning and are consistent with claims made by proponents of gamification.

The NeuroELT maxims provide underlying features of a classroom that is brain-based given research conducted at Robert Murphy's 's NeuroELT lab at the University of Kitakyushu. The presentation of the select NeuroELT maxims and corresponding MBE claims reflect the benefits of gamified instruction as a modality of delivery from the perspective of Educational Neuroscience and lend


*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.105974 Making Education More Brain-Friendly through Gamified Instruction*


**Table 2.**

*Murphy's eight NeuroELT maxims and MBE equivalents (Murphy [18]; Rueckert et al., [15]).*

support to the call for a transdisciplinary investigation of gamification and brain friendliness.

## **4.3 NeuroELT maxims and the gamified classroom**

#### *4.3.1 Maxim 13 choices*

The perception of choice as an option while learning is a pleasurable event in which the brain releases dopamine and other endorphins generating feelings of comfort and safety [19]. Brain-based learning requires that the learner survive in the classroom jungle where students can feel threatened, and the fight-flight reaction is easily reproduced. Giving the learner the ability to choose during learning creates a safety net in the classroom, making it easier to acquire information without feeling threatened as is the case in top-down traditional classrooms. The perception of choice by the learning brain establishes a sense of ownership and personal investment in the mind of the learner who will defend his/her choice without question [20].

Given that the gamified classroom has also been claimed to promote a sense of choice in keeping with MBE research, it can be suggested that gamified education is a strong alternative to the traditional classroom in which teaching through lecture, rote memorization, text-based techniques, or other top-down methods is not conducive to brain-based learning. Within gamification, features such as different alternate task paths and the ability to resubmit a homework do over provide students greater choice than traditional education.

#### *4.3.2 Maxim 14 prediction*

The maxim of prediction posits that humans take satisfaction in making predictions and experiencing the outcomes. We can see repeated patterns of human behavior related to this such as scientific research that sets a hypothesis and then gathers data to prove/disprove it. In a less scientific context, this behavior is exhibited in gambling and investment. Individuals are wired to look at a situation, look at the surrounding data, and then make predictions. Once those predictions are set, the individual lets the situations play out and monitors the outcomes.

In MBE, the focus is on meaningful experiences, which involve interactions with the material being learned. If a student can take an idea or concept and then test it out using prediction or hypothesis testing, then they have created a meaningful interaction with that concept. Their active participation in this experimentation has allowed them to more meaningfully interact with what is being learned.

Elements from gamified instruction that lead themselves to more fully provide prediction and meaningful interaction is the element of submitting an assignment with the expectation that all objectives are met. The student is predicting the positive outcome of task achievement. Of course, the objective is not always met. In these instances, the assignment is returned with feedback that helps the student to make another attempt. This is equal in process to the game feature of losing a life and making a new attempt to pass a level in a game. The player receives the negative outcome, reassesses their strategy and tries again with the prediction that the desired outcome will be reached. As the personal choices made to alter the strategy plays out, the task is more personal because the player's choice changes the outcome while action is taken. The resultant outcome supports the prediction process, reinforces a choice and creates a meaningful experience with the content.

### *4.3.3 Maxim 15 real-time feedback*

Feedback is vital in education. Feedback should be given in real time, or as quickly as possible. In language education, feedback can be real-time as students use the language to communicate. The communication between interlocutors gives simultaneous feedback to each language user. MBE suggests that feedback should be ample and of high quality.

Automated feedback, like test scores, are usually not of high quality as they tend to be impersonal. This means that to qualify as quality feedback, it should be directly meaningful to the learner. Feedback like this can take more time. However, in gamified learning, tasks are usually evaluated using benchmarks. Students have either met an objective or not. Many tasks will have multiple objectives. This will result in a list of benchmarks that must be met to have satisfactorily completed the task. Having clearly defined benchmarks makes the task of evaluation much easier and feedback can be given for each benchmark that is not met. This allows a quicker turnaround time for marking tasks as complete or sending them back for modification. This also provides a much more objective focused assessment, improving the quality of feedback which when correctly attended to by the student results in a rise in dopamine levels in the brain and a corresponding sense of pleasure and motivation.

#### *4.3.4 Maxim 16 "Aha moments"*

The heuristic educational approach of the "aha moment" has been around for centuries. This is shown in cartoons as the moment the light bulb turns on in someone's head. The brain releases dopamine when people figure things out. Education should be a series of tasks that enable students to figure things out. This is in contrast to memorization without application. A more meaningful experience is created when students experiment with tasks and then discover knowledge as it relates to their creation. MBE supports this notion with the emphasis on meaningful and more natural learning.
