How is Gamification Used in Education?

Gamification in education. Image source: openlms

Have you ever noticed your work becoming easier when you enjoy it? Even the most monotonous task is easy for someone who enjoys doing it. It is not always easy for everyone to enjoy something tedious as preferences differ. Therefore, the only option is to modify the task by adding elements that make the assignment enjoyable for everyone.

Gamification is such an approach towards education.

What is Gamification?

Gamification in education. Image source: educationcorner.com

In simple terms, using game principles and game-design elements in non-gaming contexts is what essentially explains gamification. Gamification brings features such as points, leaderboards, leveling up, checkpoints, barriers, etc., to non-gaming contexts. Education is one such non-gaming context that has benefited a lot from gamification. Gamification in education attaches gaming concepts such as scores and points to learning tasks such as assignments and tests, encouraging students to perform well and score points and top leaderboards as they would in a game. The result is that students enjoy the learning process and perform better. Apart from performing better, enjoying the learning process motivates students to engage better in the learning process and learn better.

Advantages of Gamification in Education

• The learning process becomes more enjoyable: One of the most significant disadvantages of traditional education is that learning is passive, wherein students listen passively to lectures and complete repetitive tasks. The result is that the learning process becomes monotonous and mechanical. Students do not engage in the learning process. Gamification makes the learning process enjoyable, motivating students to engage better in their learning process.

• Students have better ownership over the learning process: Gamification places the control of the learning process in the hands of the students as well. When the learning process becomes enjoyable, students are motivated to be responsible for their learning and take control of their education. 

• Encourages out-of-the-box thinking: Another advantage of gamification in education is that it encourages out-of-the-box thinking and creativity. Unlike traditional learning methods, which focus on repetitive tasks, gamification makes projects more than something students can complete by copying information from the internet. Tests and assignments in gamification require students to be creative and think out of the box to score better in their tests as they would score better in games by completing extra tasks or taking up challenges. 

• Progress becomes visible: Games have a system of displaying statistics or “stats” indicating the progress made by players. Looking at the stats, a player can discern their current standing and determine the next course of action to perform better and improve their stats. Gamification introduces a system of stats into education. This way, students can track their progress in real-time and determine what needs to be done to perform better and improve their stats.

• Higher engagement and concentration: The fun nature and real-time access to progress trackers motivate students to improve their engagement and focus more on the learning process to keep up with the rest of the classroom.

• Makes students proactive and open to making mistakes: Mistakes in traditional education are often heavily penalized. Making mistakes in formal education could prevent students from progressing in their learning process. Sometimes students might also have to repeat an entire semester or an entire course. Also, there is a great deal of shame associated with failure. Due to these factors, students in traditional learning systems are not proactive in learning new things and trying new things to gain more knowledge. On the contrary, they stick to a single source of information and follow a risk-free path until they complete their education. When gamification is used in education, students have many safety features such as checkpoints to fall back on. There is a lot to be learned from mistakes. Gamification offers students the freedom to make mistakes and learn from them. This encourages students to be proactive to learn new things and experiment with learning methods to improve their performance. LMS software, such as Moodle or Canvas, can further enhance the gamification experience in education by providing a platform for students to track their progress, receive immediate feedback, and engage in collaborative learning activities.

How is Gamification used in Education?

Gamification introduces the following concepts to education to make the learning process more enjoyable for students. The goal of these steps is to promote engagement and improve performance:

• Points and high scores that can be exchanged for rewards: 

 In games, there are points and high scores for every action towards completing the objectives of the game. There are points for completing tasks. There is also a high scores system that compares points scored by different players and rewards the highest scorers. Most often, these points can be traded for rewards or other elements in the game. Gamification introduces these systems to the learning process. Students can get points for completing tasks in the classroom. These could be anything from homework, taking notes, getting good grades in tests, or turning an assignment in before the deadline. In fact, all the activities in a traditional classroom can be made more enjoyable to students by incentivizing them through a game-like point system. These points could then be traded for rewards such as additional points in tests or better grades.

• Creative challenges:

Challenges are an exciting aspect of games. Challenges in games could be additional tasks that players have to complete or completing set functions in a different or challenging manner. Gamification introduces these concepts to the learning process. In the learning process, these challenges could be related to academic aspects or aspects that are not directly connected to the learning process. For example, students could receive extra points for good behavior or proactive efforts. Another creative approach is by students being taught how to create 3D models for game assets for example spirographs for helping them with mathematics. These can then be 3D printed.

The 3D models can be prepared using 3D modeling software then any 3D printer can be used to print them. There are various 3D modeling software available but we recommend using SelfCAD as it is easy to use and students don't have to take a lot of time learning how the software works. After the students have finished with 3D designing, they can prepare the models for 3D printing using the in-built slicer of SelfCAD without having to switch to another program. This is an interesting approach that can really help the students be more creative.

• Leaderboards:

Leaderboards are an essential feature of multiplayer games. Players in multiplayer games compete for top positions on the leaderboard. Top ranking players on the leaderboard enjoy additional features or privileges in the game. In gamified learning, a similar feature can work within a classroom. The objective of introducing leaderboards in a classroom is to encourage healthy competition among students. Students engage in healthy competition by completing additional assignments, taking proactive action towards learning new things, or applying their knowledge in projects or other areas. Students who rank high on these leaderboards could be rewarded with better privileges in the classroom or better grades in tests or assignments. Teachers could have the additional responsibility of ensuring the competition is healthy and that no sort of malpractice is involved in the process of scaling positions on the leaderboard.

• Personalized real-time statistics:

Nearly all games have a system of displaying real-time statistics or “stats” associated with a player’s progress. The purpose of these stats is to help the player be aware of their progress and how they should or should not change their approach to perform better. Gamification introduces a similar system to the learning process. Teachers could use learning management platforms or other software to record real-time student performance and make the statistics available to students in real-time. This way, students can reflect on their performance, discern their current position and decide what to do next to perform better and score more. These statistics offer a visual understanding of progress to the students making it easier to control their progress in terms of understanding it and improving it if need be.

• Levels and Checkpoints: 

Levels and Checkpoints in a game Image source:attackofthefanboy.com

In a game, players who score a particular number of points can progress to a higher level of character development, which unlocks new abilities, new privileges, new challenges, and better score multipliers,  among other things. In games, this is known as “Leveling Up.” Checkpoints are another interesting aspect of games. In a match, checkpoints refer to a point at which a player's progress is automatically saved. This means that the player could start again from the checkpoint should they face failure in their quest to complete the game. Both these aspects can be introduced to education through gamification. Students who perform better or score higher could level up and unlock new concepts, advanced learning materials, or learning aids to help them learn and perform better. Checkpoints is another system that could be advantageous to students who require additional time to learn and understand concepts better. They could fall back on the safety of checkpoints and try again from the last concept they mastered should they fail to understand their syllabi.

• Avatars and roleplaying:

​​​​​​​One of the most rewarding aspects of games is choosing any role or “avatar” they want. These characters could have any ability or feature the player decides. In gamification, students could choose roles or characters according to their competencies. This helps teachers group students according to the kind of time and attention their students require. Advanced learners could also choose characters to help other students who need additional support to learn things better.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Gamification is an exciting approach to the learning process which combines elements of gaming such as points, levels, checkpoints, leaderboards, and checkpoints to learning process. The significant advantage of gamification is that it makes the learning process enjoyable for students and consequently improves student engagement in the learning process. Gamification also helps students improve their competency and also think creatively. SelfCAD, a 3D design software that makes learning 3D designing easy for everyone through interactive tutorials that become smooth with progress, unlocks new tools for users to create robust 3D designs with professional levels of detail. 3D designing is a highly demanded and relevant skill. Help your students learn 3D designing by visiting the official website now.