What is Gamification in Education?

INTRODUCTION

The learners of today are digital natives and have a new profile. They grew up with technologies and had different learning styles, new attitudes to the learning process, and higher requirements for teaching and learning.

Teachers are facing new challenges and have to solve important issues related to adapting the learning process towards students' needs, preferences, and requirements. Teachers have to use different teaching methods and approaches that allow students to be active participants with strong motivation and engagement in their learning.

Gamification is one of the educational approaches and techniques that increase the motivation and engagement of learners.

WHAT IS GAMIFICATION IN EDUCATION?

Gamification in Education is the process of transforming typical academic components into gaming themes.

Gamification endeavors to factually create a game out of learning by theming all components of your classroom in a game metaphor; make your class like one big first-person game. Remember that the goal is to maximize learning by increasing the engagement of students.

Theming your classroom in gaming requires choosing a theme (i.e., medieval times, fantasy mystic, space battles, military, spy/secret agent) and referring to everything in your class with gaming terms (student=player, assignment=quest, grade= quest points, class party = game reward).

 GAMIFICATION IN EDUCATION – WHY?

• The use of game mechanics improves the ability to learn new skills by 40%.
• Game approaches lead to a higher level of commitment and motivation of users to activities and processes in which they are involved.
• Gamification increases competition which can lead to student engagement.
• Gamification involves student choice and creativity, which increases student engagement.
• Gamification gives students instant feedback (through peer progress bars, badges, instructor response, etc.) and allows them to track their progress towards achieving their academic goals easily.

GAMIFICATION IN EDUCATION – HOW?

Developing an effective strategy for implementing gamification in e-learning implies a depth analysis of existing conditions and available software tools. The main steps of the strategy include:

Determination of learners' characteristics

When teachers implement new approaches in the learning process, it is essential to define students' characteristics (profiles) to determine whether the new tools and techniques would be suitable.

Teachers need to establish and consider what skills are required by the participants to achieve the objectives – whether the tasks and activities require special skills by learners. There will be a possible demotivation for learners and negative outcomes in very easy or difficult tasks.

Student’s motivation to participate in training depends on the context of the learning process and what follows from their achievements.

Defining learning objectives

The learning objectives should be clearly defined and specified. Education aims to achieve the learning objectives, or otherwise, all the gamification activities will seem pointless.

The objectives determine what educational content and activities to be included in the learning process and the selection of appropriate game mechanics and techniques to achieve them.

Creation of educational content and activities for gamification

The educational content should be interactive, engaging, and rich in multimedia elements. The training activities should be developed tailored to the learning objectives and allow:

• Multiple performances – the learning activities need to be designed to repeat them in case of unsuccessful attempts. It is essential to create opportunities and environments to achieve the ultimate goal. Enhance their skills on repetitions of the attempts.

• Feasibility – the activities should be achievable. They have to be tailored and modified for student's potential and skill levels.

• Increasing difficulty level – each subsequent task is expected to be more complex, requiring more effort from students and corresponding to their newly acquired knowledge and skills.

• Multiple paths – to develop diverse skills in learners, they need to be able to reach the objectives by various paths. This allows students to build their strategies, which is one of the key characteristics of active learning.

Adding up game elements and mechanisms

The major element of gamification is the inclusion of tasks that learners have to perform. The performance of tasks leads to gather points, transition to higher levels, and winning awards. All these actions are targeted at achieving predetermined learning objectives.

It depends on the training which elements should be included and defined by the objectives (what skills should be acquired as a result of the task). Individual awards, such as badges, are rewarded to students doing independent work. Activities involving interaction with other learners are the social element of training, they make students a part of a big learning community, and their results are publicly visible on leaderboards.

SOFTWARE TOOLS FOR GAMIFICATION

There are many tools for gamification. Some of the services are cloud-based and do not require installing special software that can be accessed at any time and from any location.

GAMIFICATION CONCEPT

CONCLUSION

Gamification is an effective approach to making positive changes in students’ behavior and attitude towards learning to improve their motivation and engagement. The results of the change have bilateral nature – they can affect student’s results and understanding of the educational content and create conditions for an effective learning process.