Gamification
Gamification
taps into the power of noncompetitive play and students’ desire to improve
their skills.
In education,
gamification is intended to transform traditional lessons into an enhanced
learning experience where students choose to explore and practice content,
earning badges and status benefits. These might seem extrinsic, but the true
rewards come from the students’ internal drive to study content, gain depth of
understanding, and master material that leads to badges, achievements, and
status.
Success comes
not from the rewards, but from how the learning journey is crafted for students
to travel. Combining game mechanics with intentional exploration of aligned
content will result in students’ participating willingly.
3 KEYS TO
QUALITY GAMIFICATION EXPERIENCES
1. Every
student can reap the rewards of badges, achievements, and status by completing
all required tasks. Gamification provides powerful experiences that are
noncompetitive play to facilitate learning. Students invest time in and outside
the classroom to complete the challenges, such as doing extra readings, video
viewings, and practice activities. The more time spent and/or content consumed
can only improve depth and breadth of students’ knowledge and skill mastery.
Such investment by all students is time well spent and should be rewarded with
badges and work-related status.
Limiting access to awards to just one winner or the top finishers undermines the underlying intent of gamification: all students growing content knowledge and skills through active participation. It’s more important to have as many students as possible benefit at their own pace and build learning and self-accomplishment. Allowing only a few to earn rewards demotivates students who either believe that they cannot compete or experience frustration at having invested time toward the goal, only to fall short because someone else edged them out. When the focus is on who wins, learning by all becomes the biggest loser.
2. Gamification
offers renewable status and privileges through self-directed learning. Some say
that giving out rewards for doing work creates the wrong type of motivation,
whereby students become more focused on the treats and prizes than on the
learning. This issue is dependent on a combination of the type of work students
must do and the rewards that are earned. Gamification uses badges and
achievements to encourage students to complete meaningful tasks that improve
their content knowledge and skill levels. The tasks must align with the
curriculum expectations.
Status and
privileges earned should relate to empowering student agency about their
approach to learning. The following are some examples:
- ·
Study passes:
Choosing where they sit or access to study in the hallway, library, or other
school locations can be a powerful reward. For specific lesson activities,
students earn the right to pick their work environment and choice of partner.
In the latter case, they can only choose from students who have also completed
this badge.
- ·
Homework
passes: When students have invested additional study time into a subject, they
may not need to do additional formal practice. This pass is only good for the
current unit. Or they earn the ability to complete a comprehensive study packet
that covers all material to be addressed and bypass some of the standard
homework.
- ·
Opting out of a
test: Similar to curriculum compacting, this enables students to complete
alternative work. The tasks are specifically aligned to the unit outcomes and
give students a different way to show their learning. Students complete a badge
where they demonstrate strong organizational and self-discipline skills.
All such badges and achievements must be renewed each marking period or semester. Once earned, these statuses are privileges that can be removed if abused. If they are lost, students may reapply by completing the tasks toward earning back the status, which demonstrates responsibility and accountability.
3. Gamification
promotes goal setting and student agency. If we want students to own their
learning, they need opportunities to choose the badges and achievements they
want to complete. Renewable options empower students to explore which options
appeal to them. There should be a series of tasks that composes the badge or
achievement, including some options where they can choose the pathway that
appeals to them.
For example,
earning a homework pass might include readings, videos, and skill practice from
which they choose from a list of what to complete. The study pass may require a
written or recorded reflection about the importance of acting responsibly when
in the hallway or study location outside of the classroom. The power of options
empowers students to make the best choice that suits them and holds them
accountable for their choices.
Gamification
can have a greater impact on learning than even its cousin game-based learning.
Whereas a game can have a valuable impact in one lesson activity, gamification
done well is infused throughout the entire lesson and/or unit of study. It
maximizes participation because everyone can win.
Gamification in
Education: The Fun of Learning
Gaming is
wildly popular. More than 2 out of every 3 Americans play video games, and that
doesn't even take into account all the nondigital types of gaming, such as card
games, board games, or children's games like tag or hide-and-seek. Even little
acts like “I’m going to flip a coin to determine which movie to watch” can
count as a game and illustrate that there is something about a game that is
universally appealing.
Games are known
to offer quite a few benefits, too. Teachers have used the Civilization game
series to teach history. Walden, a game completely immerses players into a work
of literature. Good games teach players new ways of seeing and understanding
problems, and if you want to teach kids the value of sheer persistence, stick
them in front of a vintage video game console for a while.
Using Games in
Education
Educators have
taken note. Whether it’s as small as finding a game for a few students to play
or as large as asking all students in a state to come together and create
games, it is no secret that games are a powerful way to motivate and facilitate
learning.
When it comes
to games in education, there are two overall forms it can take:
- ·
Games designed
for entertainment being used in an educational setting
- ·
Educators
adopting features of game design to enhance learning
It is important
to acknowledge the first form. There is an abundance of overlap between playing
a game and learning a concept. Consider, for example, the persistence required
to beat a video game level or the instant feedback that comes with being
unsuccessful. See the academic work of Dr. James Paul Gee for an in-depth
analysis of the relationships between gaming and learning.
Even genres of
games that adults frequently dismiss, like fast-paced action video games or
match-three puzzle mobile games, are shown to have educational benefits. In the
education world, rote skill-and-drill games are sometimes criticized on
focusing on the wrong part of learning, but they often still employ
characteristics such as rewards, goals, and narrative, which can produce
demonstrative gains in learning.
Gamification of
Learning
There isn’t a
one-size-fits-all approach to gamifying learning. If you're trying to make your
next lesson more fun, consider what games and game features are best suited for
your unique situation. Do your students thrive on competition? What about
collaboration? Here are some ideas to up your classroom engagement factor:
- Create classroom avatars: If many of your students play games that let the player create characters, you could have your students create alter-egos that they can personalize and build upon. They can “unlock” clothes and modifications by completing class tasks or develop different skill sets such as “engineer” or “historian” that you can turn into custom projects.
- Award badges: This can range from handing out simple printed badges after completing an assignment to having yearlong online leaderboards. When deciding what sorts of badges to award students, be sure to think about all of your students. Focus on rewarding healthy learning habits, such as staying focused or persisting through failure, instead of simply rewarding good grades.
- Turn learning into class quests. Give students agency and motivation by turning learning objectives into quests! These can be solo quests (e.g., “Speak to the music teacher and collect three facts about Italian music”) or class-wide quests (e.g., “Read 100 books”). You can give students options for which quests to go on to not only differentiate learning but also offer them more control over their learning. You could even create a class-wide quest board that encourages collaboration.
- Connect classic games to school subjects. Certainly plenty of teachers have turned chapter reviews into quiz game shows. But you can work with any games you have access to. Consider modifying a property-acquisition game you like so that the properties are historical landmarks. Or have students play a word game but reward certain categories of vocabulary words.
Ultimately the
only limit is your imagination. What games do you play? What about your
students? Think critically about what makes them fun and be on the lookout for
ways to make learning fun, too!
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