FunPhysics: A Gamification-Based Web Platform for Interactive Teaching and Learning

Abstract

With faster and more accessible Internet, online education has been thriving at all levels of education, and it became a necessity during the COVID-19 pandemic as schools were forced to suspend their regular onsite programs. Online education offers the advantage of taking lessons from anywhere, and some models also support self-paced learning. However, one of the main challenges of online education has been reported to be the difficulty associated with keeping students engaged as the brick-and-mortar educational environment of schools cannot be fully replicated online. To address this problem of engagement, many researchers have suggested use of gamification in online education. In line with this, in this paper, we present FunPhysics, a gamified web-based platform for teaching and learning secondary-level Physics. Besides incorporating major game elements like points, badges, leaderboards, and levels, FunPhysics helps students visualize and learn concepts by simulating it under different conditions and parameter settings in a playful manner. We conducted a preliminary user study and confirmed that such interactive and gamified webservices can have a positive impact in boosting user engagement and improve learning.