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.