Gamification: A New Approach to Education

The present generation is perpetually exposed to an overwhelming amount of information and content from social media. It is no surprise then that this generation of students is at great risk of developing a rapidly shrinking attention span. To counter this new age problem, educators have turned to a process known as “gamification”. Research shows strong evidence of gamification being linked to student engagement and attention. But what is gamification in education? Understanding the concept of a math game and its impact is pivotal in the successful implementation of this technique in your personal teaching practice.

Gamification is the process of extracting elements, theories, and themes from games and applying them to other, unrelated areas and fields of work. In the context of teaching, this means including concepts of levels, points, etc., to drive student engagement and make learning more fun and competitive. Duolingo and similar sites are popular examples of gamified learning.

Key Concepts of Gamified Education

Rewards and Points System

Giving students points and rewards is a great way of boosting their self-confidence while providing tangible, quantifiable feedback on their performance. This way, students can track their performance through their scores and be motivated by the promise of rewards to try harder.

Leaderboards for Competition

Introducing leaderboards is also an easy way of fostering healthy competition among students and pushing them to try harder. Nurturing healthy competition among students from a young age also teaches them how to handle disappointment, failure, and temporary hardships in life.

Personal Milestones

Little things like awarding badges or celebrating achievements also go a long way in creating a positive learning environment and incentivizing students to meet targets and milestones. The learning environment could also be embedded within specific storytelling narratives to capture students’ attention and make the concepts easy to remember.

Levels and Achievements

Just as video games have levels of difficulty, with high stakes promising high rewards, similarly awards for exceptional achievements or overcoming high difficulty levels in a subject could be introduced. This would add an element of personal interest to the learning experience. Personalizing the achievements to address individual goals would further create a sense of investment and interest among students.

Impact of Gamification on Education

The gamification of education has had a largely positive impact on the modern teaching landscape. By gamifying education, you are essentially mobilizing gaming tools and trends to fully utilize a student’s short attention span for maximum learning. This results in a personalized, engaging, and immersive learning experience that targets both internal and external motivating factors in a student to enhance their skill and learning ability. Gamification of assessments and tests also develops students’ cognitive and critical thinking skills and is considered an enhanced alternative to traditional approaches by many new-age educators.

Conclusion

Educators must also keep in mind potential pitfalls when introducing a new system. Gamification essentially relies on technology, which many students might need access to. Things like ranks and leaderboards might also create undue pressure on struggling students. It is important to remember gamified education is a constant work in progress. Educators have to be diligent in their observations and make necessary tweaks to their gamified lesson plans to ensure their teaching objectives are being met.