How does gamification serve education and teaching?

Gamification is a concept used today in various fields of application, such as marketing, communication, and business, but it is also very relevant in delivering programmes of education.

When the objective of your gamification project is for education, this means you’re applying elements and mechanics from games and video games to make learning more fun for students. Its aim is to make the learning path more attractive and engaging for learners, and the content can be adjusted and tailored to suit and serve learners of all levels and ages – from kindergarten and primary school students, all the way up to adults.

Gamification is applying game elements to tasks which can typically suffer from low user motivation to achieve better results. This can be almost anything, because human beings are so complex and nuanced as individuals, that while one person might take to maths like a duck to water, another may find it the most unbearable form of torture. Similarly, one individual may be highly motivated and disciplined when it comes to fitness and sports, while others will benefit greatly from gamified apps that use gaming mechanisms to demonstrate their progress and educate them, essentially tapping into their intrinsic motivations and engaging them in the process through the power of gaming. But why is it so effective when combined with and transposing traditional educational settings?

Why is gamification effective in education?

As for the appeal of gamification for education, among other things, it encourages learners to play with content, challenge themselves, and take ownership of their own learning experience. If you’ve ever played a video game, you know how great it feels to play a challenging level over and over again until you finally complete it. By challenging students and giving a sense of mastery over a subject, gamification encourages learners to explore different ways of looking at things and thinking about problems. It’s more participatory than the classic blackboards, chalk, and textbooks approach.

Learning through playable experiences becomes a more enjoyable and engaging activity, in a less pressured atmosphere than traditional educational settings, that can be a little intimidating to some students, and carry draconian and outdated associations. Gamifying education can shift the focus from the traditional classroom model to a more active and flexible learning method.

Gamified education is a natural extension of early learning

In the United States, before starting elementary school, really young children go to preschool, but in the United Kingdom, before starting primary school, really young children go to playschool – the clue is in the name.

Even before playschool, children learn how to interact with others, and how to function by playing at being functional humans. They play shop, and cops and robbers, and imitate their parents and what they see in TV and movies. It’s a very natural learning mechanism.

While learning things like mathematics and history requires more structure and planning, modern gamification solutions allow teachers and educators to take that highly structured approach, but also merge it with all the elements of play that make that pre-schooling style of learning so effective. Gamification has been effectively utilised to teach across all subjects, from bringing the English language to life, to making STEM subjects less intimidating, to even working as standalone games that allow individuals to learn how to play musical instruments without the need for a teacher or formal lessons.

How to gamify education and teaching?

Gamification in education typically takes the form of serious games, which is to say, games and activities that combine a serious intention with playful mechanisms. These allow students to improve their skills, or to acquire what can be very complex knowledge.

While gamification is not without its constraints, these are more concerned with the technology of our time. Modern mobile technology makes modern gamified experiences incredibly effective at immersing players in learning simulations, but in 5 or 10 years, when virtual reality is more accessible, and artificial intelligence (AI) programmes can be integrated in the customisation process of game engines, it will go from being an innovative and highly effective digital solution, to being an unrivalled digital solution, particularly when it comes to educating students, as it will make total immersion possible, and ask players to suspend less of their disbelief to effectively engage with content.

Effective learning games must take into account the ability level of their target audience

The whole issue of creating a fun educational game is to calibrate your educational objectives with the appropriate level of difficulty. This difficulty level must suit the level of the students and reflect their progress in the game. That task needs to be challenging, to motivate the player to rise to said challenge, but not so difficult as to be impossible, as this is demotivating.

There exists a sweet spot of challenge in all matters that yields the best results out of individuals. It occurs in jobs roles, where employees can either be burned out or bored if their work is too hard or too easy, it occurs in sports, where athletes can either injure themselves and start to regress or plateau if they don’t apply the appropriate levels of progressive overload, and it occurs very acutely in students. Where an adult might be willing to go above and beyond to succeed at their job, a child will be far quicker to throw their toys out of the pram and call something a day.

Gamification aims at efficiency, and to achieve that efficiency, great care must be put into game design and planning. Through the Drimify games creation platform, it’s easy to customise tried-and-tested game engines to your exact educational needs. By gamifying courses and learning long term, you will be able to analyse student data in real time from your Drimify dashboard, to constantly make your gamified educational content more efficient and more effective at helping your students in their learning journeys.

The art of gamification carries a lot of nuance from project to project

There are a whole host of mechanics that educational games can feature, and different player types will be drawn to different elements. Some common gamification techniques used in education include scores, levels, and points, that replace traditional grading systems.

However, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to gamification when applied to learning. If you want to make your next lesson more entertaining and playful with a gamified experience, you need to first think about the game features that best suit your goals, as well as the ability levels and age of your students.

Here are some ideas to gamify your classroom, and more effectively engage your students:

Create class avatars

You can have your students create alter egos that they can customise and develop. They can “unlock” accessories, clothing, modifications and skills for their character by completing tasks in class or during their digital learning courses.

Hand out badges

This can range from handing out simple paper badges after completing a job, to organising an online leaderboard throughout the year. When deciding what types of badges to give to students, remember to represent all of your students. Focus on rewarding healthy learning habits, like staying focused or persevering in the face of failure, instead of just rewarding high scores.

Remember, gamifying education should turn it into a more fun activity, that’s how it’s improving, or complementing, more traditional educational practices. While the ultimate goal is to turn Es into Cs, Ds into Bs, and Cs into As, you need to reward the habits that will help your students to improve.

Organise competitions

Educators and teachers can also organise competitions with their students on a regular basis, which will motivate each of them to learn better and get better grades. Between knowledge tests and speed Quizzes, or even mini games with content and details designed to reinforce learnings, there is no shortage of ideas for contests to strengthen the commitment and motivation of learners.

Create immersive role-playing games

Through role-playing games, lesson plans can be optimised and adapted to the needs of each student who becomes an actor in their learning. This allows teachers to impart knowledge and enhance the collective learning experience in an immersive, active, and more relaxed way. This is especially helpful for students with dyslexia or other learning issues that require extra attention.

Get better performance tracking

With the mass digitisation of education, modern online educational games can be easily integrated to the modern classroom, and to make for more engaging homework. Through educational games created with Drimify, teachers can measure student performance through the data in their dashboard, always with the aim of supporting and guiding the learner through their learning journey and larger academic career.

Ultimately, the only limit to using gamification is your imagination. You can use a variety of game mechanics to keep learners engaged in classroom courses, digital learning, and create unique learning experiences to help students acquire new skills and knowledge.

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