Gamification is used in many fields and industries. It is intended to improve customer loyalty to the business: “Receive a discount within our last 5 emails for 50% off dedicated server hosting.”
It’s a little different in education. Gamification in education aims to provide an interactive experience for students while providing evidence of their progress with rewards.
Gamification plays an important role in modern education and offers many benefits besides making the learning process fun.
About Gamification
Gamification is the process of making various activities fun by turning them into games.
Look again The Difference Between Game-Based Learning and Gamification
In education, gamification involves integrating game elements (usually game design) into educational settings and learning materials in order to increase students’ interest in learning and skills such as analytical thinking, problem solving, communication, and collaboration. Gamification in education does not mean turning the entire lesson into a game but rather using game elements to enrich lessons.
Games can help teachers determine the strategy they need to use to improve a particular skill or activity. For example, they can suggest activities that involve competition to improve social interaction or customization to encourage creativity.
In short, gamification exists to increase motivation and interest in learning.
Look again How to Get Gamification Out of Your Classroom
Gamification benefits
The benefits of gamification are hard to deny and very visible; so, we list the most important ones below.
Better Mental Development
Gamification is proven to activate areas of the brain related to cognitive development. In addition, gamified learning accelerates brain activity and accelerates the development of various skills.
The variety of ways in which work is presented through gamification helps expand the scope of situational analysis and problem solving as well.
Higher Levels of Engagement
Increased classroom engagement is one of the most profound effects of gamification. Traditional learning methods are often difficult to maintain student attention and concentration often leading to poor learning outcomes.
Gamification uses challenges, leaderboards, points, badges, etc., to encourage exploration and curiosity and keep students engaged.
Making Learning Visible
One of the reasons why students are not as invested in the learning process as they could be is because it is difficult to define the learning journey without some milestones and something that stands for them.
Gamification helps make the learning process tangible. Rewards or points are often earned after completing a task, or there is a tangible result of participation to remind students of a task.
Developing a Growth Mindset
Feeling shy or embarrassed is very real for students of various ages. There is also a fear of failure that may be seen by other classmates, which translates into stress.
Introducing game elements into the learning process creates an environment for easy self-expression. In addition, it makes failure fun and even something unifying.
Like a video game, where you fail but try again, this time knowing what to expect, gamification presents a perspective where failure is part of the process. In this way, gamification helps build persistence and confidence.
How Effective Is Gamification?
Gamification has many advantages, and because of them it is very effective. Based on research and statistics, gamification leads to:
- About 90% increase in student performance.
- 68% increase in learning motivation.
- 300% homework completion rate.
- Quick completion of work in more than 50% cases.
- Continued improvement in reading in 73% of students with ADHD.
- Students want to be part of improving the learning process.
How Gamification Can Help Diverse Students
Gamification can promote a level playing field for students who are born differently.
The fact is that the class is diverse and the students will get one complex task. Advanced lessons can help students look at and complete tasks that seem too difficult or too easy in a fun way, all the while helping students stay on track with the curriculum.
Gamification can help:
-Separate difficult objects. Gamification can put difficult material into an easily digestible form for all students to understand. And even if they don’t fully understand, the gamified course invites them to follow those parts that are easy for them to follow at their own pace.
-Make simple tasks fun. On the other hand, if the subject is too easy for some students, they may lose interest and focus. Measuring, using rewards and challenges that they can face at their own pace, can help those students be more present with their progress.
– Frustrated students take a break. A reward system is a great tool for gamification offerings. It can help frustrated students feel better about their progress, keeping their focus on one step at a time rather than being overwhelmed by the big picture.
– Students are not anxious and insist on concentration. Curriculum takes the “seriousness” out of formal education and brings more joy to learning.
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