Gamification is about using game mechanics such as rewards, badges, levels, upgrades, currency, avatars, leaderboards, and more to motivate and engage the learners. Game-Based Learning is done through game or game like activities that incorporate gaming principles and usually involve the playing of a game. These games could be made with education in mind or can be made by students to demonstrate their understanding in a topic.
Opportunity Statement:
The ‘genii’ of digital gamification as originally championed by the video games industry is no longer captive in the ‘bottle’ of gaming consoles and closed-narrative titles – it can apply its engagement magic openly and generatively across platforms and networks. Have you got game?
Resources:
Educational Game Market Report
Gamification has a huge impact on education, especially since it is so popular and there is a huge misunderstanding on how to properly apply gamification and what the benefits are. For example, Blooket or Kahoot are games where you answer multiple choice questions for points and whomever answers the most questions in the same amount of time wins. However, this is actually not an effective way of learning, and often effective gamification that leads to relavent learning involves students creating their own games as they work through the principles of what they are learning. I think with the push for more technology to be used in schools, gamification will increase, but also be problematic through improper understanding and use.
Gamification is a fascinating topic to me, as I have spent the majority of my working life in the gaming industry. When I transitioned into education, I thought I could easily leverage my gaming experience in teaching. However, this proved to be a major misconception and has caused me to question the true effectiveness of gamification in learning. It has raised many questions, such as, “What about students who are not enticed by gamification?” and “Is this the best way to engage students given the frantic pace of the modern curriculum?” This seemingly limitless number of questions is what motivates me to dig deeper into gamification, and as such, the topic has remained at the forefront of my learning in Ed Tech.
As a primary educator, I see gamification as a highly opportunistic learning technology because it directly impacts student engagement and motivation in the classroom. Reward-based systems can be very motivating for young learners and encourage participation in learning activities. One example is Raz-Kids, where students earn stars after completing reading tasks, which can then be used to unlock additional books and rewards within the platform.
However, I have also observed that some students may focus on earning rewards rather than engaging deeply with the reading itself, such as quickly clicking through texts without full comprehension. This suggests that while gamification is effective in increasing engagement, it also has limitations and requires careful design to ensure it supports meaningful learning rather than surface-level participation.
I’ve only been teaching for 5 years, but one thing I have noticed across the board is the lack of attention students have in the classroom. When I first started teaching, I remember asking my mentor teacher how she grasped the attention of students, and she said “Gamify your teaching!”. This led to me trying to create all of my lessons into games (physical, or digital), and I became exhausted quite quickly, although it did increase student engagement. I felt I was doing them a disservice as well with this type of teaching, because when they grow up, they will see that real life is not a game. There will be many moments where they will be bored in life, and that is a skill that I believe should be practiced too. It does feel like we are competing for their attention always with devices being so prevalent in the classroom, and at home, but it seems to be the way of education moving forward. Everybody is in front of a screen and that is not going to change. I also create a rewards system in my classroom to manage behaviors, ie: a certain number of stars earned by good behavior led to a free block on the IPADS on Friday, or a movie day, etc which has been very effective. I do not believe rewards are bad inherently, as developmentally children need rewards, and adults look forward to a reward too (IE: we go to work because we get paid), however the challenge is trying to maintain a balance of academic instruction where students use technology to aid their learning, but do not become addicted/dependent on it because too much screen time is proven to re-wire their brain, and diminish their attention span and emotional regulation.
Gamification and game based learning are important because they can make learning more active, motivating, and memorable. When students work toward goals, make choices, earn progress, or solve problems through game style activities, they are often more willing to take risks, collaborate, and keep trying.
The key is that the game elements must support the learning rather than distract from it. Badges, points, levels, and leaderboards are only useful when they connect to meaningful thinking. The real value is in using games to create challenge, feedback, collaboration, and engagement in a way that deepens understanding.
We would love to think that all of our students are intrinsically motivated to learn but the truth is they aren’t.
In some of the private schools I have worked in, motivation to be in school comes from families who pay a significant amount of tuition money.
In schools in Canada’s north (like the one I am currently working in), there is much less motivation from families. The result is student attendance which often dips below the 50% mark, and in high school, significantly less even than that. Gaps in achievement are significant, and teachers often feel hopeless in effecting any kind of meaningful change.
Leaderboards, rewards, badges, certificates, levels, and other game mechanics embedded into lessons and activities can be one way to encourage engagement and focus in the classroom. We use leaderboards in some of our classrooms for reading level growth. Students are generally competitive, and the visual display motivates them to get their name up to the next level.
Students also appreciate acknowledgement for their hard work such as receiving quarterly certificates for regular attendance and reading growth. In schools where regular attendance, and reading at grade level, is the exception, not the norm, there is even more reason to make a show of it when it does happen. I don’t know if these rewards actually increase attendance and achievement, or simply reward students for doing what they would have done anyway, but I do believe that when learning is gamified in a meaningful and authentic way, it can significantly improve the learning experience, at least for those who are already in attendance.
With the growth in micro-content and consequent reduction in attention spans, future educators will need ways to maintain learners’ focus and motivation on lesson content. I personally see this lack of attention and motivation as the largest obstacle educators will face in the coming decades, and gamification provides a simple tool to help with this. The primary effect of gamification on learning is that it instills motivation (both extrinsic and intrinsic) in learners who may otherwise be unmotivated to learn.
The tricky thing here is ensuring learners are retaining the lesson content, not just breezing through it to attain the next badge or to reach the top of the leaderboard. Gamification must be used to hack the human brain to promote deep learning; it needs to combine the dopamine hit of gamified features with other strategies or technologies that promote deeper, long-term learning (a gamified immersive experience or knowledge visualization, perhaps).
I find gamification a great way to add variety and increase motivation for my students in my language classes. I sometimes let my students create their own review boardgames and I sometimes will use dice and cards in activities to add variety.
Online apps such as Duolingo, Blooket, and Kahoot! have incorporated gamification to provide fun experiences for learners, and I think there is an important place for these kinds of learning tools, as long as they aren’t overused.
For all kinds of learners, I think gamification will continue to be an important part of education into the future.
I have a love-hate relationship with gamification. I enjoy video games immensely but can’t remember any significant memories of learning through gamification in my own history. I have used Kahoots and Quizizz hundreds of times, to mixed success, but I’m sure we’re all too familiar with the types of students who are playing just to win a game, and not to really engage with the material, or those students who give up after a question or two because they don’t see themselves on the leaderboard.
Extrinsic motivation, which gamification aims to leverage, is a fickle thing. On one hand, I do see it as a useful way to motivate students to practice fundamental and formulaic skills when introducing a new topic. An example that comes to mind would be when I’m teaching my Science 10 students about the patterns of the periodic table using a Quizizz, or practicing multiplication tables with a Kahoot, or something similar. I’m okay with putting aside a bit of the intrinsic reward of memorizing times tables if it means that we can then focus more deeply on applying these skills to more critical problem solving.
I agree with other posters in that attention spans across the board are shrinking and students are increasingly difficult to keep on task (especially a hard one) for meaningful periods of time. And this is a shame because many of us probably agree that persevering through difficulty and coming out the other end with a working answer/prototype/success in any form is what really gets students hooked on a topic.
So as much as I wish that gamification wasn’t so broadly applied in educational settings for the sake of attention spans and delayed gratification, I still see this concept as one that we will need a lot more time to shake. I think gamification is and will be the band-aid fix for shrinking attention spans for a while until we find a way to convince students it’s “cool to care” about things and that the juice is usually worth the squeeze.
Gamification and game-based learning are powerful tools for increasing engagement and participation, especially for students who may struggle with confidence or motivation in math. Elements like progress systems, challenges, and immediate feedback can make learning feel more interactive and meaningful rather than passive. In my junior high classroom, student engagement is often tied closely to interest and relevance, so game mechanics can help create a more positive learning experience.
From an EdTech perspective, I think gamification works best when it supports deeper learning rather than simply rewarding completion. Through projects like designing educational games in Genially, I have seen how game-based learning can encourage problem-solving and collaboration alongside curriculum outcomes. The real importance of this technology is not just making learning “fun,” but creating experiences that increase student agency in the learning process.
Working in an inner-city school, gamification has potential to play a big role in my school as engagement is a big challenge. Our students come to school with different experiences and challenges that can sometimes make focussing and learning difficult. Gamification can assist with motivation by using rewards, levels and points. Gamificaiton can help with participation and good habits.
Gamification could also help with building connections and create a positive classroom culture. Celebrating progress and growth can play a role with connection and culture!
As an educator of the middle grades, I find that gamification can be a great learning tool; however, it can also be abused or just unsuccessful. I appreciate how it can reach some students in class who previously weren’t engaged in the coursework, but it can also be a distraction to the learning that was supposed to happen. I remember spending hours creating online game questions or a Jeopardy study guide for students, only for them to disengage or overengage in hopes of a prize or just general competitiveness. As an educator, I still use gamified lessons or reviews, but I use them sparingly and only when I have the time to create a positive environment where students can learn effectively in the classroom.
K-12 math curriculum naturally lends itself to game mechanics; challenge, progression, and immediate feedback map directly onto how mathematical understanding develops. As a math educator, I actively design lesson plans with hands-on, game-based learning frameworks in mind such as using manipulatives and model building, finding that interactivity and engagement are often the limiting factor in activating knowledge retrieval and learning progress. Well designed game-based exercises can facilitate genuine learning beyond simply motivating participation, making mathematical skill building more desirable and meaningful.
What I find most compelling to investigate is how AI-supported, feedback-rich, culturally and gender-sensitive digital game-based design, built on interactivity and adaptive challenge, could potentially level the playing field for diverse learners working toward conceptual and methodological mastery.