Is game based learning the same as learning gamification?

The terms game based learning (GBL) and learning gamification are often thrown around synonymously when discussing modern approaches to education and corporate training. If you’re a teacher or training provider looking to innovate your training methods, you might be wondering if there’s a tangible difference, and if so, what you need to keep in mind when implementing a new programme or adding educational games to your toolkit.

In this article we’ll discuss their differences, and talk about how to use gamification and game based learning harmoniously to achieve your desired teaching outcomes.

Defining learning gamification

Gamification is using game mechanics to make typically less playful tasks more enjoyable and productive. In the form of education, applying elements like progress bars and leaderboards can appeal to a student’s competitive nature or their desire to achieve. You’re encouraging learners to be participants in their education through gamified activities.

Rudimentary elements of gamification have long been used in school settings, with students being awarded stars or badges for completing activities, and adding elements of competition to written and oral assignments in the forms of grades. In subjects where students are put into sets based on ability, the sets could almost be looked at as levels for learners to progress through.

In most cases these in-built game mechanisms are out of touch with a student’s perception of what a modern gaming experience actually is. The game mechanics applied to traditional education are so far removed from the student’s experience they could be described as alarmingly out of date.

Defining game based learning

In game based learning, the “game” element is very much front and centre to the experience. When participating in a game based learning environment, students aren’t earning points or badges because of traditional learning activities they’ve shown some proficiency in, the educational value is intrinsically programmed into the game and through game play.

Students get to learn new topics and develop new skills in the risk free learning environment of the game. They’re not being graded because of a potentially high stakes test, they’re getting feedback based on how they play the game, and if they come up short, they can repeat the experience to improve. This obviously applies to younger learners in formal education, but can also apply to educational games for adults, where typically high stakes decision making in a job can be simulated in the game as part of on the job training. The interactive, digital elements of the game allow digital native students to better engage with challenging topics.

The rapid development of technology means that teachers are now able to easily put content into the form of online educational games. They can do this without any coding experience, creating bespoke GBL experiences suitable for any learning outcome.

How to incorporate them both into an effective programme of learning

Most of the time, it would be fair to attribute game based learning to being a byproduct of gamification applied to educational and training settings. There are occasions, however, where it must be acknowledged that players have learned through games that weren’t explicitly designed for learning purposes. For example, when players learn English through playing video games in English, or in the case of Minecraft, which was hugely successful commercially, but later appreciated by teachers for its educational value, ultimately spawning an Education Edition, players are engaged in examples of game based learning independent of learning gamification.

Adjust your lesson content to fit a game format

By making the teaching content fit into the form of an online educational game, you can tap into a student’s existing familiarity with video games to help them better engage with their learning. Utilising Drimify’s Dynamic Path™ format, you can create a learning pathway for your students that incorporates multiple levels of interactive game play, and you can use any of the game formats in the Drimify catalogue to craft it.

By creating a learning pathway, you have the potential to raise a student’s performance beyond what their standardised test scores would predict. You’re putting them into a more familiar environment. While they might struggle to read a book, they might be quite practised at following the narrative of a video game, so taking them into that environment can help to teach them about plot devices and unreliable narrators. Similarly, you could move histories into the form of a video game, so instead of reading a dry account of the Roman Senate, they could play a game that took them through its timeline.

Gamify your teaching to help your students learn through experience

Before students go to school, they learn by experience. Introducing game based learning gives the learners in your classroom some continuity with their home life, and at early stages can get ahead of any negative associations they may make with traditional schooling.

In secondary school or high school, the online educational game format, customised and implemented in the right way, can help you reach learners who previously may not have responded well to more traditional teaching techniques. Introducing an experiential aspect of teaching like game based learning is another door through which your students can discover their interest in a topic.

Easily make a game based learning a part of your training room or classroom

Game based learning allows you to give students a learning experience, inviting them to have an experiential connection to a topic. This can be a great way to complement more traditional teaching methods, as after experiencing something, even in a digital context, it becomes easier to relate to, and of greater interest.

Customising online educational games, which is simple to do through the Drimify platform, puts your students into the video game format they’ll be familiar with, and encourages them to interact and participate with the subject matter.

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