Innovating Pedagogy for engaging multiple senses

Our series of Innovating Pedagogy reports have consistently covered emerging approaches which can have an impact on educational landscapes. While pedagogical innovations can originate from within educational institutions, companies and organisations, they often arise outside of these settings. 

Leisure activities which organise participants around common knowledge, incentives and objectives have been shown to inspire new pedagogical ideas. Within the gaming industry competitive esports has been a key player in this space, developing digital tools which attract shared interest from online participants worldwide.

While its basic principles are focused around competitive gaming, esports are a global leisure activity that uses online platforms which can be used in educational ways. Some organisations currently use these online platforms support informal learning to their global audiences, often offered by amateurs who share learning on singular topics.

Esports is known for engaging its participants in several ways, engaging attention by stimulating the senses and connecting with a global social network. They also appeal to large numbers of spectators viewing the games online in similar ways, layering spectator and in-game content from multiple channels to maximise attention and stimulation.

Virtual reality (a three-dimensional image which is overlaid on physical reality in order to represent environment) is a ground-breaking new method of gaming whereby a person can use digital equipment such as a headset with a screen inside which can enhance immersive gaming experiences.

Gamified Education

IET and The Open University have explored ways in which gaming technology can enhance education throughout developments in the industry. From our research, we envisage virtual reality devices will expand in the gaming industry over the coming decades, evolving to involve more human senses, such as smell and taste.

As outlined in the section on multi-sensory learning from the Innovating Pedagogy report for 2020, education has traditionally involved listening, looking and watching. However, there is growing interest in designing learning activities which can stimulate several senses.

Learners who have special educational needs are among those who can benefit from multi-sensory experiences, supporting learning processes such as memory recall, contextual understanding and positive behavioural development. For similar reasons learners can also benefit from animated experiences, which our pedagogical research shows learners can see important processes close up or in slow motion; with the ability to be in control of the viewing.

Design principles are available to help teachers and developers engage in designing animations for learning, as well as understand how other methods can involve multi-sensory experiences.

Read our study on Multi-sensory Learning in the 2020 Innovating Pedagogy report to learn more (PDF 1MB).