Gamification is used in many fields and industries. It aims to foster customer loyalty in the business: “Get a discount among our 5 most recent emails to get 50% off dedicated server hosting.”
It’s a little different in education. Gamification in education aims to provide a more interactive learning experience for students while providing proof of their progress through rewards.
Gamification plays a major role in modern education and offers many benefits besides making the learning process fun.
About gamification
Gamification is the process of making different activities more entertaining by turning them into games.
See also The difference between game-based learning and play
In education, play involves incorporating game elements (usually game design) into educational environments and learning materials to enhance students’ enthusiasm for learning and skills such as analytical thinking, problem solving, communication, and collaboration. Educational gamification does not mean turning every lesson into a game, but rather using game features to enrich lessons.
Games can help teachers identify the strategy they need to apply to reinforce a particular skill or activity. For example, they can suggest activities that involve competition to promote social interaction or personalization to encourage creativity.
In short, play exists to increase motivation and interest in learning.
See also How to remove gameplay from your classroom
Benefits of playing
The benefits of play are hard to deny and they are very clear; Therefore, we mention the most important ones below.
Better cognitive development
Play has been shown to activate areas of the brain associated with cognitive development. Moreover, learning through games accelerates brain activity and accelerates the development of various skills.
The variety of ways to present a task through play helps expand situational analysis and problem solving as well.
Higher engagement levels
Increasing classroom engagement is one of the most profound effects of play. Traditional learning methods often struggle to maintain student attention and focus which often results in worse learning outcomes.
Gamification uses challenges, leaderboards, points, badges, etc. to encourage exploration and curiosity and keep students engaged.
Make learning visible
One reason students don’t invest as much in the learning process as they could be is that it’s difficult to define the learning journey without specific milestones and something to represent them.
Gamification helps make the learning process visible. Rewards or points are often earned after completing a particular task, or there is a physical consequence of the collaboration to remind students of a particular activity.
Foster a growth mindset
Feeling shy or embarrassed is very real for students of all ages. There is also a fear of failure that other classmates could witness, which translates into pressure.
Introducing game elements into the learning process creates an atmosphere of easy self-expression. Plus, it makes failure fun and even something relatable.
Just like in a video game, where you fail but have to try again, this time knowing what to expect, gameplay offers a perspective in which failure is just part of the process. In this way, play helps build perseverance and confidence.
How effective is gamification?
Gamification has many benefits, thanks to which it has become very effective. Based on research and statistics, gamification leads to:
- Nearly 90% increase in student performance.
- 68% increase in motivation towards learning.
- Homework completion rate is 300%.
- Faster completion of tasks in more than 50% of cases.
- Continuous improvement in studying for 73% of students with ADHD.
- Students want to be part of improving the learning process.
How gamification can help different students
Play can promote an equal environment for naturally bright students.
The reality is that the classroom is diverse and students will find one assignment of different complexity. Game-based lessons can help students take on tasks that seem too difficult or too easy and complete them in a fun way, while at the same time helping learners stay on track with the curriculum.
Play can help:
– Breaking difficult materials. Gamification can put difficult material into an easy-to-understand format for all students to understand. Even if they don’t understand it all, a game-based lesson invites them to follow those parts that are easy for them to follow at their own pace.
– Make easy tasks interesting. On the other hand, if the material is too easy for other students, they may lose interest and focus. Play, with rewards and challenges that they can take on at their own pace, can help these students be more present in their progress.
– Relaxing overworked students. The rewards system is a great tool for game shows. It can help overwhelmed students feel better about their progress, keeping them focused on one step at a time rather than getting overwhelmed by the big picture.
– Anxious and stressed students have to concentrate. Game-based lessons take away the “seriousness” of formal education and make learning more fun.