Gamification—A Manifesto

By Zainab Cheema 

As the semester draws to a close, the time is ripe to reflect on the hottest trends in education. And the name of the game is, well, gamification. Educators are finding that games are an effective way of teaching not just content but also key skills and competancies such as communication, sharing, problem-solving and designing. Gaming is coming to be seen as an innovative approach to teaching, one that can address some of the technical and motivation-building challenges posed to the profession of education within the last few years.

What is gamification? There are many definitions of gamification, but at its essence, it refers to the incorporation of games or game like techniques in learning. This includes the increasing use of digital games within the classroom, such as Kahoot!, Quizizz, Quizlet Live, Gimkit, Blooket, not to mention the specialized gaming programs developed for disciplines such as math, English, ESL, civics, social studies, and history. It also involves integrating the fundamental principles and techniques of games within learning modules. In her blog post for ISTE, Michele Haiken recommends building quest-style assignments within learning modules; as well as using tools such as Google Slides, Google Forms, and gamification platforms like Classcraft to create boss battles.

Game thinking can be incorporated in the class, whether or not teachers choose to bring digital games into their lesson plans. At the core of successful video games, we can find principles for building expectations, heightening expectations and scaling performance that translate well to real world settings. As a blog post on True Education Partnerships puts it, “[g]amification in learning involves using game based elements such as point scoring, peer competition, team work, score tables to drive engagement, help students assimilate new information, and test their knowledge.”

Role-playing within teams is a gaming strategy that literature teachers often turn to. In video games such as Assassin’s Creed, Halo and The Witcher, avatars and multi-character interactions creates an immersive world building experience that helps the player absorb the needed rules and information. Translating that principle to my classroom, I created a lesson plan around a world literature text that stages a satirical debate between animals and humans. After students selected themselves into pro-animal and pro-human teams, I asked them to role play as some of the characters within that text and prepare for a class debate between the two teams. Students adapted the characters to present day concerns and used the rhetoric within the text to fashion their arguments for their own position and their counter arguments to the other team. Gamifying the text helped them to absorb its lessons without it being perceived of as “work.”

Leaderboards and badging are gaming strategies to encourage competition and high level performance in the classroom. In video games, leaderboards show the gamers that have gained the most points within a certain play. Kahoot uses the same principle, showcasing the top 3 to 5 players on pedestals to amp up the competition within quiz style games. Developing a leaderboard for a certain assignment or assignment sequence is an excellent way to foster competition and excitement amongst students, especially if the teacher goes over the leaderboard at the beginning of the class. While top performers must be celebrated it is also imperative to avoid a “one winner takes all” scenario. Instead, teachers should organize the leaderboard to distribute the praise and rewards for accomplishments more broadly. 

Badging is another gamification element that work well in the classroom. As a Lambda Solution blog discusses, gamification badges can be used as an alternative or even a supplement to traditional point based grading systems. Educator Billi Bromer recommends developing a system in which students can earn badges for learning challenges that appear at different levels of progress and move through learning modules based upon performance. If teachers opt to distribute digital badges, one option is to use Badgr, a system that is integrated within the Canvas learning management system. Alternatively, educator Alice Keeler has discussed how she creates badging using Google Sheets. However, many teachers also believe in the importance of physical artefacts as a way of building motivation by appealing to students’ tactile senses.

Gamification centers on a core principle that has been around for as long as human civilization, but that is getting adapted and updated through new digital tools. It’s simple. Play is at the core of learning and education. Gamification helps us to reconnect with how to save education by making it fun again.