3 benefits of using gamification in your class
Thomas Courtley
Education Specialist
In recent years the term “gamification” is used to define game-elements in a non-game context, in order to improve your students' experience.
Pros and cons of gamification in education
It is widely agreed upon, by educators and researchers, that educational games are effective in motivating students and making learning more interesting.
The application of gamification in education, when done right, stimulates engagement for all students, but especially for the many students who have difficulty fitting into the traditional methods of instruction. Shyer students, students who need more stimuli, or children with special needs might find their voice and actively participate in a gamified learning environment. It might even provide a partial solution to the decline of learners’ motivation and engagement.
Many research studies in this area focus on non-customisable games that are designed for very specific groups of learners and subjects. In actual classrooms, however, non-customisable digital games often are not flexible enough to enable you to put gamification into practice.
1. Gamification is known to increase student motivation
Gamification does not only improve the engagement of learners. Students also become more and more motivated to excel. Rigby and Ryan (2011) state that the constructive, friendly competition of games in the classroom “has the potential to foster feelings of relatedness, thereby enhancing intrinsic motivation.”
Students are driven by the mechanics of the game. They become very focused and motivated to solve all the challenges and complete the tasks at hand.
2. Gamification is known to improve collaborative skills
Gamified lessons are often designed for groups or teams of students that work together to achieve a common goal. This sense of community motivates students to become emotionally involved and to feel responsible for the group’s outcome.
Students working together in teams develop social skills while playing together towards a common goal. The interaction required stimulates them to perform at their best.
3. Gamification is known to strengthen knowledge retention
Immediate feedback, a crucial element of gamification that feeds the learners’ need for connection, has shown to be “among the most powerful factors in the relationship between educational interventions and learning in general.” (Randel & others 1992)
The potential of gamification to enhance learning can be traced also to its appealing graphics, engaging nature, and its ability to actively involve learners.
Boost student learning with customisable digital games
LessonUp offers a toolkit and platform that facilitates the creation of gamified lessons and learning techniques that are extremely flexible and customisable.
These ready-made, customisable lessons are based on classic and less classic board games or game shows. They engage students by providing game elements that trigger intense focus, teamplay, motivation, and engagement.
Each one of these lessons is customisable depending on what you teach and what your learning objectives are. There are no limits to the subjects you can teach your students in a gamified setting. Moreover, you can differentiate these gamified lessons per classroom or group of students, and you can implement them in the classroom, or remotely, depending on what your preferences are.
While your students are playing a lesson you can monitor what they are doing in the students’ reports, and provide them with instant feedback if you think they need some help. Once the game is concluded, all the results are safely stored in the students’ reports. You can look back at them whenever you want to monitor your students' engagement with the lesson material, and look at the lesson’s results.
Check out this article with several examples of customisable gamified lessons
