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The Power of Gamification in Education | Scott Hebert | TEDxUAlberta

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Gamification taps into the power of noncompetitive play and students' desire to improve their skills.

Dan Page Collection / The iSpot

In the business world, gamification is used in customer loyalty programs for credit cards and memberships: Spend money and invest time in the business's app and products to earn discounts and status upgrades. Everyone benefits at their own pace.

In education, gamification is intended to transform traditional lessons into an enhanced learning experience where students choose to explore and practice content, earning badges and status benefits. These might seem extrinsic, but the true rewards come from the students' internal drive to study content, gain depth of understanding, and master material that leads to badges, achievements, and status.

Success comes not from the rewards, but from how the learning journey is crafted for students to travel. Combining game mechanics with intentional exploration of aligned content will result in students' participating willingly.

3 Keys to Quality Gamification Experiences

1. Every student can reap the rewards of badges, achievements, and status by completing all required tasks. Gamification provides powerful experiences that are noncompetitive play to facilitate learning. Students invest time in and outside the classroom to complete the challenges, such as doing extra readings, video viewings, and practice activities. The more time spent and/or content consumed can only improve depth and breadth of students' knowledge and skill mastery. Such investment by all students is time well spent and should be rewarded with badges and work-related status.

Limiting access to awards to just one winner or the top finishers undermines the underlying intent of gamification: all students growing content knowledge and skills through active participation. It's more important to have as many students as possible benefit at their own pace and build learning and self-accomplishment. Allowing only a few to earn rewards demotivates students who either believe that they cannot compete or experience frustration at having invested time toward the goal, only to fall short because someone else edged them out. When the focus is on who wins, learning by all becomes the biggest loser.

2. Gamification offers renewable status and privileges through self-directed learning. Some say that giving out rewards for doing work creates the wrong type of motivation, whereby students become more focused on the treats and prizes than on the learning. This issue is dependent on a combination of the type of work students must do and the rewards that are earned. Gamification uses badges and achievements to encourage students to complete meaningful tasks that improve their content knowledge and skill levels. The tasks must align with the curriculum expectations.

Study passes: Choosing where they sit or access to study in the hallway, library, or other school locations can be a powerful reward. For specific lesson activities, students earn the right to pick their work environment and choice of partner. In the latter case, they can only choose from students who have also completed this badge.

Homework passes: When students have invested additional study time into a subject, they may not need to do additional formal practice. This pass is only good for the current unit. Or they earn the ability to complete a comprehensive study packet that covers all material to be addressed and bypass some of the standard homework.

Opting out of a test: Similar to curriculum compacting, this enables students to complete alternative work. The tasks are specifically aligned to the unit outcomes and give students a different way to show their learning. Students complete a badge where they demonstrate strong organizational and self-discipline skills.

Status and privileges earned should relate to empowering student agency about their approach to learning. The following are some examples:

All such badges and achievements must be renewed each marking period or semester. Once earned, these statuses are privileges that can be removed if abused. If they are lost, students may reapply by completing the tasks toward earning back the status, which demonstrates responsibility and accountability.

3. Gamification promotes goal setting and student agency. If we want students to own their learning, they need opportunities to choose the badges and achievements they want to complete. Renewable options empower students to explore which options appeal to them. There should be a series of tasks that composes the badge or achievement, including some options where they can choose the pathway that appeals to them.

For example, earning a homework pass might include readings, videos, and skill practice from which they choose from a list of what to complete. The study pass may require a written or recorded reflection about the importance of acting responsibly when in the hallway or study location outside of the classroom. The power of options empowers students to make the best choice that suits them and holds them accountable for their choices.

Gamification can have a greater impact on learning than even its cousin game-based learning. Whereas a game can have a valuable impact in one lesson activity, gamification done well is infused throughout the entire lesson and/or unit of study. It maximizes participation because everyone can win.

Gamification empowers students with the ultimate in choices when setting goals for what badges and achievements they want to complete, which leads to learners building skills for self-reliance and self-control. You can explore more mechanics for implementing gamification here. Game on!

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Using Gamification to Ignite Student Learning

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Gamification taps into the power of noncompetitive play and students' desire to improve their skills.

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Gamification in Higher Education: What and Why?

Most people, when they think about gamers, picture teenage boys who are so addicted to games that they are glued to their computers. But the actual statistics show that the population of adult women gamers outnumbers that of males under 18. This means that games have a wide appeal, and everyone has the capacity to derive joy from games if they are well designed and engaging. The same applies to learning. In fact, a simple comparison (Table 1) reveals that there are surprisingly many similarities between gaming and learning.

Exploring a new world

Quests

Points and badges

Social interaction: collaboration and competition

Learn from failures

Time limit and stress

Exploring a new subject/topic

Learning objectives

Grades and awards

Social interaction: collaboration and competition

Learn from failures

Deadlines and pressure

Since many of the fundamental mechanisms of gaming and learning are the same, more and more educators are beginning to explore the possibility of gamifying the process of learning to make it as much an automatic and fun process as gaming. Gamification of education is the application of game elements in non-gaming situations to motivate or influence behavior and it should be distinguished from game-based learning (which has a narrower scope).

The application of gamification in higher education will incentivize students to learn on their own and with more efficiency. A primary reason is that it helps build connections among members of an academic community through encouraging collaboration and competition. It is very important to be mindful of the social dimensions of teaching and learning whether the instructor is teaching in person or remotely, and gamification is an excellent tool for achieving this goal. Furthermore, a gamified learning process has the potential to immerse your students in the curricular content and cultivates a positive attitude toward study. Learning is no longer a laborious task but a fun and rewarding quest.

There are multiple ways through which one can harness the power of play and introduce gamification into higher education to produce positive outcomes. Gamification could be applied in a wide range of situations, ranging from the digitally sophisticated to the casual, informal, and analog. The instructor can create gamified activities of different scales, duration, and complexity to: 1. Grant students extra-credit awards; 2. Promote in-class team competition and/or collaboration; 3. Implement complex multilevel schemes over a longer period of time to give students an immersive experience.

The following section will provide an overview of gamified activities in different educational contexts. For the sake of convenience, the examples of gamified activities are organized around two axes - level of technical complexity (from no-/low-tech to high-tech) and duration of activity (from short to long). The instructor can freely adapt the gamification activities to increase or decrease their complexity and change their duration to suit his/her pedagogical needs.

Gamification in Action

No-/low-tech
Trivia/Jeopardy-style review game (Quizlet Live, Kahoot)

Virtual scavenger hunt for class warm-up (Zoom)

Interactive game (Mentimeter)

Debate (Canvas Discussion, Ed Discussion, Twitter)

Research-strategize-argue activity (Slack, Discord, Ed )

Gamified writing with accountability (Google Docs, Google Sheet, Google Jamboard, shared workplace apps)

Medium-tech
Low-stakes assessments and review quizzes, class warm-up activities (Poll Everywhere)

Pre-packaged games for language instructions (City of words)

Instructor-designed content-based learning activities (Google Suite products)

Pre-packaged simulation games for non-language courses (ARTé Mecenas)

High-tech
Escape room activity (on site or Google Forms)

Reacting to the Past games (Humanities/Social sciences examples; STEM examples)

ECHO (Fourcast Lab)

Low-tech Examples

Short-duration

No-/low-tech, short-duration gamification activities either make no use of digital tools or else use digital tools that require minimal technical explanation from the instructor. They include a variety of participatory, low-stakes engagements during class time, e.g., trivia or jeopardy style review games created using tools like Canvas Quizzes, Quizlet Live, Kahoot, or class warm-up activities like virtual scavenger hunt using Zoom, and interactive games using Mentimeter. The ease of implementation illustrates that even gamified activities of less sophisticated design can be pedagogically useful, intellectually challenging, and socially engaging for students.

Medium-duration

Low-tech, medium-duration gamified activities make use of similar technical tools, but take up more class time or preparation time. A great prototype for this kind of activity is a Twitter debate (alternatively on Canvas Discussion or Ed Discussion) or a research-strategize-argue activity using Slack or Discord. Such activities require students to make creative use of familiar communicative tools, bolster collaborative skills, and find an efficient way to synthesize delegated research work.

Long-duration

Low-tech, long duration gamified activities encourage students to work toward a big-picture outcome or on an iterative process using a manageable set of digital tools, e.g., Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Jamboard, and LucidChart. A prime example is that of gamified writing with accountability, e.g., by using Google Docs as a virtual space in which to develop individual writing practices and share feedback with one another. With minimal technical preparation, students report on their progress, share feedback and reflections, and together track their progress toward a long-term writing project. By cultivating a collaborative writing environment, this provides supportive accountability.

Medium-tech Examples

Short-duration

The powerful but easy-to-navigate UChicago-supported polling tool Poll Everywhere can be employed to develop short-duration, medium-tech gamified activities such as low-stakes assessments/review quizzes, "getting to know you" activities, and interactive idea-generating/opinion-gathering activities. These types of gamified activities can be impactful tools for maintaining student attention, interest, and motivation by chunking segments of course content.

Medium-duration

Typical examples of this category include web-based, off-the-shelf (OTS) games available for instructional use, e.g., the City of Words game offered by the Goethe Institute for German Instruction. The instructor can draw inspiration from these games and design similar gamified activities tailored to the needs of his/her students to provide them an immersive learning experience.

Adopting an innovative approach called content-based teaching, three language instructors at Northwestern University designed three language courses in Arabic, Hebrew, and Turkish based on the iconic cities of Cairo, Jerusalem, and Istanbul. Instead of traditional textbooks, they use authentic texts and multimedia sources as teaching materials. These materials were presented in a multisensory way and are accompanied by creative language-learning exercises that use various digital tools to advance students' language proficiency and broaden their cultural knowledge.

This content-based, immersive learning method could be employed for non-language courses as well. The pre-packaged learning game ARTé Mecenas is a single-player simulation game for students to understand art and how the artworks were created in Renaissance Italy. The player engages in banking simulation as a member of the Medici family who must build his wealth and reputation through the transaction of goods and art works. Games of this kind can be used before, during, and after the term, in a variety of ways that enable students to stay in touch with course content.

High-tech Examples

Short-duration

For short-duration, high-complexity gamification activities, an excellent example is the escape room activity designed by medical instructor Dr. Christopher See. Dr. See customized the escape room puzzles for his students to help them recall what they learned in the class (about the cardiovascular system) and strengthen their memory. The activity achieved great success and had an impact beyond campus.

Escape room challenges can be digitally sophisticated (like the one designed by Dr. See) but also humble and quick. The Peters Township public library created a Harry Potter-themed game with Google Forms, without substantial investment in props and venue. But in all cases, escape rooms require lateral thinking, comprehensive advanced planning, and a fair amount of storyboarding and testing on instructor's part.

Medium to Long-duration

In terms of medium to high-tech, medium to long-duration gamification activities, the role-playing game Reacting to the Past (RTTP) stands out as a prime example. In the RTTP games, students are assigned character roles with specific goals and they must devise their own means of expressing those ideas persuasively in papers, speeches, or other public presentations. Since class sessions are student-led and there is no fixed script or outcome, RTTP activities give students more control over their learning process and extra motivation to continue learning outside the classroom. Furthermore, they emphasize the social aspect of the learning process as students must communicate, collaborate, and compete effectively to advance their objectives.

While it started out as a game for history instruction, instructors in other disciplines have also created gamified activities using the RTTP framework. This website is a repository of Reacting to the Past games for use in STEM courses.

Long-duration

Launched in early 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, ECHO is a community-building game developed by members of the Fourcast Lab at UChicago. Players competed as teams and sought to accumulate points by completing discrete text quests and video quests developed by faculty and staff members at the University. It represents a huge collaborative effort of many scholars, artists, programmers, game designers and developers and nicely illustrates how complex, wide-ranging, and long in duration a gamified activity can be. Even if a game of this scope can not be incorporated into a single course, some of its constitutive elements may be fruitfully employed for instructional purposes.

Gamification Workshop

If you are interested in learning more about the application of gamification in higher education and get tips on how to design and implement gamified activities in your class, consider attending our Introduction to Gamification for Higher Education Workshop!

Resources and References

Image Attribution

@ on Adobe Stock.

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Introduction to the Use of Gamification in Higher Education: Part 1

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Most people, when they think about gamers, picture teenage boys who are so addicted to games that they are glued to their computers. But the actual statistics show that the population of adult women gamers outnumbers that of males under 18.

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How Effective is Gamification in Education? 10 Case Studies and Examples - Axon Park

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In this article we provide 10 statistics, case studies and examples to demonstrate the power of gamification for learning and education.

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The gamification of learning is an educational approach that seeks to motivate students by using video game design and game elements in learning environments. The goal is to maximize enjoyment and engagement by capturing the interest of learners and inspiring them to continue learning. Gamification, broadly defined, is the process of defining the elements which comprise games, make those games fun, and motivate players to continue playing, then using those same elements in a non-game context to influence behavior. In other words, gamification is the introduction of game elements into a traditionally non-game situation.

There are two forms of gamification: structural, which means no changes to subject matter, and the altered content method that adds subject matter. Games applied in learning can be considered serious games, or games where the learning experience is centered around serious stories. A serious story needs to be both "impressive in quality" and "part of a thoughtful process" to achieve learning goals.

Gamification of learning does not involve students in designing and creating their own games or in playing commercially produced video games, making it distinguishable from game-based learning, or using educational games to learn a concept. Within game-based learning initiatives, students might use Gamestar Mechanic or to create their own video game or explore and create 3D worlds in . In these examples, the learning agenda is encompassed within the game itself.

Some elements of games that may be used to motivate learners and facilitate learning include:

Progress mechanics (points/badges/leaderboards, or PBL's)

Narrative and characters

Player control

Immediate feedback

Opportunities for collaborative problem solving

Scaffolded learning with increasing challenges

Opportunities for mastery, and leveling up

Social connection

When a classroom incorporates the use of some of these elements, that environment can be considered "gamified". There is no distinction as to how many elements need to be included to officially constitute gamification, but a guiding principle is that gamification takes into consideration the complex system of reasons a person chooses to act, and not just one single factor. Progress mechanics, which need not make use of advanced technology, are often thought of as constituting a gamified system However, used in isolation, these points and opportunities to earn achievements are not necessarily effective motivators for learning. Engaging video games which can keep players playing for hours on end do not maintain players' interest by simply offering the ability to earn points and beat levels. Rather, the story that carries players along, the chances for players to connect and collaborate with others, the immediate feedback, the increasing challenges, and the powerful choices given to players about how to proceed throughout the game, are immensely significant factors in sustained engagement. Business initiatives designed to use gamification to retain and recruit customers, but do not incorporate a creative and balanced approach to combining game elements, may be destined to fail. Similarly, in learning contexts, the unique needs of each set of learners, along with the specific learning objectives relevant to that context must inform the combination of game elements to shape a compelling gamification system that has the potential to motivate learners.

A system of game elements which operates in the classroom is explicit, and consciously experienced by the students in the classroom. There is no hidden agenda by which teachers attempt to coerce or trick students into doing something. Students still make autonomous choices to participate in learning activities. The progress mechanics used in the gamified system can be thought of as lighting the way for learners as they progress, and the other game mechanics and elements of game design are set up as an immersive system to support and maximize students' learning.

Gamification initiatives in learning contexts acknowledge that large numbers of school-aged children play video games, which shapes their identity as people and as learners. While the world of gaming used to be skewed heavily toward male players, recent statistics show that slightly more than half of videogame players are male: in the United States, 59% male, 41% female, and 52% male, 48% female in Canada. Within games and other digital media, students experience opportunities for autonomy, competence and relatedness, and these affordances are what they have come to expect from such environments. Providing these same opportunities in the classroom environment is a way to acknowledge students' reality, and to acknowledge that this reality affects who they are as learners. Incorporating elements from games into classroom scenarios is a way to provide students with opportunities to act autonomously, to display competence, and to learn in relationship to others. Game elements are a familiar language that children speak, and an additional channel through which teachers can communicate with their students.

Game designer Jane McGonigal characterizes video game players as urgent optimists who are part of a social fabric, engaged in blissful productivity, and on the lookout for epic meaning. If teachers can successfully organize their classrooms and curriculum activities to incorporate the elements of games which facilitate such confidence, purpose and integrated sense of mission, students may become engrossed in learning and collaborating such that they do not want to stop. The dynamic combination of intrinsic and extrinsic motivators is a powerful force which, if educational contexts can adapt from video games, may increase student motivation, and student learning.

Some of the potential benefits of successful gamification initiatives in the classroom include:

giving students ownership of their learning

opportunities for identity work through taking on alternate selves

freedom to fail and try again without negative repercussions

chances to increase fun and joy in the classroom

opportunities for differentiated instruction

making learning visible

providing a manageable set of subtasks and tasks

inspiring students to discover intrinsic motivators for learning[citation needed ]

Referring to how video games provide increasingly difficult challenges to players, game designer Amy Jo Kim has suggested that every educational scenario could be set up to operate this way. This game mechanic which involves tracking players' learning in the game, and responding by raising the difficulty level of tasks at just the right moment, keeps players from becoming unnecessarily frustrated with tasks that are too difficult, as well as keeps players from becoming bored with tasks that are too easy. This pacing fosters continued engagement and interest which can mean that learners are focused on educational tasks, and may get into a state of flow, or deeply absorbed in learning.

In gamified e-learning platforms, massive amount of data are generated as a result of user interaction and action within the system. These actions and interactions can be properly sampled, recorded and analyzed. Meaningful insights on performance behaviors and learning objectives can be useful to teachers, learners and application developers to improve the learning. These insights can be in form of a quick feedback to learners on the learning objectives while the learner still operates within the rules of play. Data generated from games can also be used to uncover patterns and rules to improve the gamified e-learning experience.

In a large systematic review of the literature regarding the application of gamification in Higher Education benefits where identified such as positive effects in student engagement, attitude, performance and enjoyment although these are mediated by the context and design.

Three key ways in which a classroom, course, or unit can be gamified are through changing the language, adapting the grading process, and modifying the structure of the learning environment. With regard to language, instead of referring to academic requirements with the typical associated terms, game-like names may be used instead. For example, making a course presentation might be referred to as "embarking on a quest", writing an exam might be "defeating monsters", and creating a prototype might be classed as "completing a mission". In terms of grading, the grading scheme for a course might be adapted to make use of Experience points (XP) as opposed to letter grades. Each student can begin at level one with zero points; as they progress through the course, completing missions and demonstrating learning, they earn XP. A chart can be developed to illustrate how many XP is required to earn a letter grade. For example, earning 1500 XP might translate to a C, while 2000 would earn a B, and 2500, an A. Some teachers use XP, as well as health points (HP) and knowledge points (KP) to motivate students in the classroom, but do not connect these points with the letter grades students get on a report card. Instead these points are connected with earning virtual rewards such as badges or trophies.

The structure of a course or unit may be adapted in various ways to incorporate elements of gamification; these adaptations can affect the role of the student, the role of the teacher, and role of the learning environment. The role of a student in a gamified environment might be to adopt an avatar and a game name with which they navigate through their learning tasks. Students may be organized into teams or guilds, and be invited to embark on learning quests with their fellow guild members. They may be encouraged to help other guild members, as well as those in other guilds, if they have mastered a learning task ahead of others. Students tend to express themselves as one of the following game-player types; player (motivated by extrinsic rewards), socialiser (motivated by relatedness), free spirit (motivated by autonomy), achiever (motivated by mastery) and philanthropist (motivated by purpose). The role of the teacher is to design a gamified application, embedding game dynamics and mechanics that appeal to the target group (i.e. students) and provide the type of rewards that are attractive to the motivation of the majority. Therefore, it is important teachers know their students so they are able to best design a gamififed program that not only interests the students but also one in which matches the specific learning goals that hit on elements of knowledge from the curriculum. The teacher also needs to responsibly track student achievements with a web-based platform, such as Open Badges, the WordPress plug-in GameOn or an online spreadsheet. The teacher may also publish a leaderboard online which illustrates the students who have earned the most XP, or reached the highest level of play. The teacher may define the parameters of the classroom "game", giving the ultimate learning goal a name, defining the learning tasks which make up the unit or the course, and specifying the rewards for completing those tasks. The other important role of the teacher is to provide encouragement and guidance for students as they navigate the gamified environment.

The role of a gamified learning environment may be structured to provide an overarching narrative which functions as a context for all the learning activities. For example, a narrative might involve an impending zombie attack which can be fended off or a murder mystery which can be solved, ultimately, through the process of learning. Learning is the focus of each gamified system. Sometimes the narrative is related to the content being learned, for example, in the case of a disease outbreak which can be stopped through learning biology. In some cases the narrative is unrelated, as in a case of music students who learn to play pieces as the means to collectively climb up to the top of a mountain, experiencing various challenges and setbacks along the way. Other ways in which gaming elements are part of the role of the learning environment include theme music played at opportune times, a continuous feedback loop which, if not instantaneous, is as quick as possible, a variety of individual and collaborative challenges, and the provision of choice as to which learning activities are undertaken, how they will be undertaken, or in which order they will be undertaken.

Without adding extra gaming elements to the classroom, schooling already contains some elements which are analogous to games. Since the 1700s, school has presented opportunities for students to earn marks for handing in assignments and completing exams, which are a form of reward points. Since the early 1900s, with the advent of psychoanalytic theory, reward management programs were developed and can still be seen in schools. For example, many teachers set up reward programs in their classrooms which allow students to earn free time, school supplies or treats for finishing homework or following classroom rules.

Teaching machines with gamification features were developed by cyberneticist Gordon Pask from 1956 onwards, after he was granted a patent for an "Apparatus for assisting an operator in performing a skill". Based on this patent, Pask and Robin McKinnon-Wood built SAKI - the Self-Adaptive Keyboard Instructor - for teaching students how to use the Hollerith key punch, a data entry device using punched cards. The punched card was common until the 1970s and there was huge demand for skilled operators. SAKI treats the student as a "black box", building a probabilistic model of their performance as it goes. The machine stores the response times for different exercises, repeating exercises for which the operator has the slowest average response time, and increasing the difficulty of exercises where the operator has performed successfully. SAKI could train an expert key-punch operator in four to six weeks, a reduction of between 30 and 50 percent over other methods. "Ideally, for an operator to perform a skill efficiently, the data presented to him should always be of sufficient complexity to maintain his interest and maintain a competitive situation, but not so complex as to discourage the operator". SAKI led to the development of teaching software such as the Mavis Beacon typing tutor, fondly remembered by students of touch-typing everywhere.

While some have criticized the term "gamification" then, as simply a new name for a practice that has been used in education for many years, gamification does not refer to a one-dimensional system where a reward is offered for performing a certain behaviour. The gamification of learning is an approach which recently has evolved, in coordination with technological developments, to include much larger scales for gameplay, new tools, and new ways to connect people. The term gamification, coined in 2002, is not a one-dimensional reward system. Rather, it takes into consideration the variety of complex factors which make a person decide to do something; it is a multifaceted approach which takes into consideration psychology, design, strategy, and technology. One reason for the popularization of the term "gamification" is that current advancements in technology, in particular, mobile technology have allowed for the explosion of a variety of gamification initiatives in many contexts. Some of these contexts include the Starbucks and Shoppers Drug Mart loyalty programs, location-based check-in applications such as Foursquare, and mobile and web applications and tools that reward and broadcast healthy eating, drinking, and exercise habits, such as Fitocracy, BACtrack and Fitbit. These examples involve the use of game elements such as points, badges and leaderboards to motivate behavioural changes and track those changes in online platforms. The gamification of learning is related to these popular initiatives, but specifically focuses on the use of game elements to facilitate student engagement and motivation to learn. It is difficult to pinpoint when gamification, in the strict sense of the term, came to be used in educational contexts, although examples shared online by classroom teachers begin appearing in 2010.

The research of Domínguez and colleagues about gamifying learning experiences suggests that common beliefs about the benefits obtained when using games in education can be challenged. Students who completed the gamified experience got better scores in practical assignments and in overall score, but their findings also suggest that these students performed poorly on written assignments and participated less on class activities, although their initial motivation was higher. The researchers concluded that gamification in e-learning platforms seems to have the potential to increase student motivation, but that it is not trivial to achieve that effect, as a big effort is required in the design and implementation of the experience for it to be fully motivating for participants. On the one hand, qualitative analysis of the study suggests that gamification can have a great emotional and social impact on students, as reward systems and competitive social mechanisms seem to be motivating for them. But quantitative analysis suggests that the cognitive impact of gamification on students is not very significant. Students who followed traditional exercises performed similarly in overall score than those who followed gamified exercises. Disadvantages of gamified learning were reported by 57 students who did not want to participate in the gamified experience. The most frequent reason argued by students was 'time availability'. The second most important reason were technical problems. Other reasons were that there were too many students and that they had to visit so many web pages and applications at the university that they did not want to use a new one.

In the study of Mouaheb, Fahli, Moussetad and Eljamali an American version of a serious game was investigated: Virtual University. Results showed that learning using this serious game has educational values that are based on learning concepts advocated by constructivist psycho-cognitive theories. It guarantees intrinsic motivation, generates cognitive conflicts and provides situated learning. The use of Virtual University allowed the researchers to identify the following key points: from its playfulness combined with video game technologies, the tool was able to motivate learners intrinsically; the simulation game also recreates learning situations extremely close to that of reality, especially considering the complexity, dynamism and all of the interrelations and interactions that exist within the university system. This is a major educational advantage by encouraging 1) an intense interaction that generates real cognitive or socio-cognitive conflicts, providing a solid construction of knowledge; 2) an autonomy in the learning process following a strong metacognitive activity; 3) an eventual transfer of acquired skills.

Multiple legal restrictions may apply to the gamification of learning because of the difference in laws in different countries and states. However, there are common laws prevalent in most jurisdictions.

Administrators and instructors must ensure the privacy rights of learners are protected. The use of Personally Identifiable Information(PII) of learners and other user-generated data should be clearly stated in a privacy policy made available to all learners.

Gamified e-learning systems can make use of existing game elements such as avatars and badges. Educators should be aware of the copyright protection guiding the use of such elements and ensure they are not in violation. Permission should be obtained from the creators of existing game items under copyright protection. In some cases, educators can create their game elements for use in such gamified e-learning systems.

Gamification of learning has been criticized for its use of extrinsic motivators, which some teachers believe must be avoided since they have the potential to decrease intrinsic motivation for learning (see overjustification). This idea is based on research which emerged first in the early 1970s and has been recently made popular by Daniel Pink. Teachers may not acknowledge that extrinsic motivators are already at work in a typical classroom, or they may wish to minimize extrinsic motivation.

Some teachers may criticize gamification for taking a less than serious approach to education. This may be a result of the historical distinction between work and play which perpetuates the notion that the classroom cannot be a place for games, or a place for fun. Game play has also suffered under misconceptions of being easy, irrelevant to learning, and applicable only to very young children. These negative impressions of play may translate into suspicions regarding the value of game elements which promote fun and a sense of playfulness within a learning context.

Teachers who criticize the gamification of learning might feel that it is not worth their time to implement gaming initiatives, either because they themselves are stretched thin with the number of responsibilities that they already have, or because they fear that the curriculum might not be covered if any time is spent dedicated to anything other than engagement with that curriculum. Gamification of learning has been also criticized as ineffective for certain learners and for certain situations. Proponents of gamification have never claimed that gamification is such a panacea, recognizing that it is not an appropriate strategy to motivate every learner in every circumstance. Videogame theorist Ian Bogost has criticized gamification for its tendency to take a simplistic, manipulative approach which does not reflect the real quality of complex, motivational games. Educational scenarios which purport to be gamification, but only make use of progress mechanics such as points, badges and leaderboards are particularly susceptible to such criticism.

1. ^ Shatz, Itamar (2015). Using Gamification and Gaming in Order to Promote Risk Taking in the Language Learning Process (PDF). MEITAL National Conference. Haifa, Israel: Technion. pp. 227-232.

2. Huang, Wendy Hsin-Yuan; Soman, Dilip (10 December 2013). A Practitioner's Guide To Gamification Of Education (PDF) (Report). Research Report Series Behavioural Economics in Action. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto.

3. Deterding, Sebastian; Dixon, Dan; Khaled, Rilla; Nacke, Lennart (2011). From game design elements to gamefulness: defining 'gamification'. 15th International MindTrek Conference. New York: ACM. pp. 9-15. doi:10.1145/2181037.2181040. ISBN 9781450308168.

4. ^ Borys, Magdelena; Laskowski, Maciej (19-21 June 2013). Implementing game elements into didactic process: A case study (PDF). Management, Knowledge and Learning International Conference. Zadar, Croatia. pp. 819-824. ISBN 9789616914024.

5. ^ Borges, Simone; Durelli, Vinicius; Reis, Helena; Isotani, Seiji (24-28 March 2014). A systematic mapping on gamification applied to education. ACM Symposium on Applied Computing. Gyeongju, Republic of Korea. pp. 216-222. ISBN 9781450324694.

6. ^ Kapp (2012), p. 200: "result of the brainstorming process ... is the creation of a gamification design document outlining the design of the game ..."

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The gamification of learning is an educational approach that seeks to motivate students by using video game design and game elements in learning environments. The goal is to maximize enjoyment and engagement by capturing the interest of learners and inspiring them to continue learning.

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Classroom debates are closely connected to communication standards in all grades, and the predictable structure helps students express themselves.

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The Power of Speech & Debate Education : Stanford National Forensic Institute

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The Stanford National Forensic Institute is a national caliber summer forensics program, offering Policy, LD, Public Forum and Parliamentary Debate, Individual Events and the Coaches Institute.

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Using debates in the classroom provide students the opportunity to work in a collaborative and cooperative group setting. By having students discuss and organize their points of view for one side of an argument they are able to discover new information and put knowledge into action. Classroom debates help students learn through friendly competition, examine controversial topics and "strengthen skills in the areas of leadership, interpersonal influence, teambuilding, group problem solving, and oral presentation" (Leuser, n.d., para. 1).

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Classroom Debates | Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning | Northern Illinois University

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Using debates in the classroom provide students the opportunity to work in a collaborative and cooperative group setting.

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Using the power of debate to enhance critical thinking

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Asking students to analyse, defend and counterargue a contentious issue has proved an engaging way to teach reasoning and communication skills in organisational behaviour courses

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How to use Genially for Escape

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tutorial How TO USE GENIALLY FOR NEW YEAR RESOLUTION

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tutorial How TO USE GENIALLY FOR NEW YEAR RESOLUTION

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Tutorial How TO USE GENIALLY TO CREATE THE ESCAPE ROOM