# data[].attributes.body
http://neatoday.org/2014/06/23/gamification-in-the-classroom-the-right-or-wrong-way-to-motivate-students/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Gamification is the process of taking something that already exists - a website, an enterprise application, an online community - and integrating game mechanics into it to motivate participation, engagement, and loyalty. Gamification takes the data-driven techniques that game designers use to engage players, and applies them to non-game experiences to motivate actions that add value to your business. To learn more about real-world applications of gamification, see the wide range of gamified Success Stories from Bunchball customers.

When people hear gamification, they envision games created for a business purpose. But gamification is not about creating something new. It is about amplifying the effect of an existing, core experience by applying the motivational techniques that make games so engaging. When you gamify high-value interactions with customers, employees, and partners, you drive more sales, stronger collaboration, better ROI, deeper loyalty, higher customer satisfaction and more. Learn more about how Bunchball provides a gamification platform for your business.

Gamification is built upon 10 primary game mechanics, proven to motivate and engage users, and may use any combination of these techniques to accomplish business goals. Learn more about game mechanics.

Gamification is transforming business models by creating new ways to extend relationships, craft longer-term engagement, and drive customer and employee loyalty. It works because it leverages the motivations and desires that exist in all of us for community, feedback, achievement and reward. When combined with the latest research on motivation and the big data generated by user interactions, gamification empowers businesses to create true loyalty. Learn more about true loyalty in the book by Bunchball Founder Rajat Paharia: Loyalty 3.0

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Gamification is the process of taking something that already exists - a website, an enterprise application, an online community - and integrating game mechanics into it to motivate participation, engagement, and loyalty. Gamification takes the data-driven techniques that game designers use to engage players, and applies them to non-game experiences to motivate actions that add value to your business.

# data[].attributes.headline
Pros and Cons of Gamification in the classroom

# data[].attributes.subject
Pros and Cons of Gamification in the classroom

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Technology Solutions That Drive Education

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
There is growing acceptance of the use of digital games in the learning and discovery processes, whether to raise knowledge around school subjects, help business professionals master new skills or keep college students on course.

Just where gamification will have its greatest impacts in learning - whether within K-12 or higher ed classrooms or other business or general user scenarios - remains to be seen. There is a great deal of participation among teachers within certain circles, Rochester Institute of Technology's Andrew Phelps says. Phelps - a professor and the founder and director of RIT's Center for Media, Arts, Games, Interaction & Creativity ( MAGIC) and the founder and former director of RIT's School of Interactive Games & Media (IGM) - points out that, at the lower grades, teachers are frequently hamstrung when it comes to how much they can innovate, given increases in testing and regulations put in place over the last several years.

But, Phelps says, gamification is in "its really early days, and we're still drilling into how and why this stuff works and what makes it effective." Indeed, it's possible that the most popular application of digital gamification "might be something we haven't even thought of yet."

Gamification Will Play Into the Data Revolution

As Phelps sees it, digital gaming "is becoming more and more mainstream culture, a media form - it's not just the stereotypical 14-year-old playing shoot-'em-up games in the basement [and] eating pizza."

It should come as little surprise, then, that gamification is beginning to experience success in business, training and education markets, says Wanda Meloni, founder and senior analyst at M2 Research.

" A nice thing about gamification is that it provides metrics, so that you can pretty easily see as a trainer or educator just how a user or participant is progressing through a particular process," Meloni says.

But rewards and recognitions earned during game play must be carefully considered, Phelps says. "One thing we learned through some informed thinking coming out of other systems we've worked on is that if users get those extrinsic, pointless gold stars, then over time not only do they lose value, but you wind up also actually demotivating someone in terms of their desire to engage."

Balancing Metrics with Real Engagement

Karen Schrier, assistant professor of media arts at Marist College, says a lot of games give leaderboard points or badges for a correct response to a quiz question on specific topics "instead of using the game experience to motivate students . . . in a way that authentically and intrinsically makes students more engaged with and enthusiastic about the subject."

Schrier has created a mobile game on the American Revolution for middle and high school students that not only shares insights into history but also teaches critical thinking, evaluation and interpretation skills - "activities that are inherent to learning," she says. The game mechanics involved send students on a quest to find British and American historic figures, hear their testimonials and collect evidence to conclude who fired the first shot at Lexington.

"I want the game, and its mechanics, to help them develop a love for and curiosity about history, rather than a love for the points or badges they can earn for getting the 'so-called' facts correct," she says.

Schrier will teach a concentration in interactive media and game design in a new major at Marist this fall, called Media Studies and Production.

Badges crafted to serve more as reminders of a particular accomplishment or completion of a significant milestone, and less about wins, can serve as greater motivation, Phelps says - an important consideration, because once motivation is lost, so, too, are the learning opportunities that digital gamification seeks to realize.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Pros and Cons of Gamification in the Classroom

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
There is growing acceptance of the use of digital games in the learning and discovery processes, whether to raise knowledge around school subjects, help business professionals master new skills or keep college students on course. Just where gamification will have its greatest impacts in learning - whether within K-12 or higher ed classrooms or other business or general user scenarios - remains to be seen.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn how gamification in the classroom can transform the school experience by helping teachers manage, motivate, and engage their students.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
What thoughts come to most students' minds when they're asked about the Articles of Confederation? If they're up on their civics, they'll know it was the first Constitution of the United States. Some will remember it as a primary source they used in a presentation. Others will only recall the Articles as a yellowed document printed in a textbook or posted online.

Matthew Farber's eighth-grade history class may view the Articles as all these things, but the document to them also represents the failed first attempt to adopt a rule-sheet to govern a game creating a U.S. government.

"The way my students see it is that the Articles was this initial rule-sheet. The country play-tested it and it flopped, so the founders replaced it with the United States Constitution, a much more detailed and effective set of instructions. The Bill of Rights then became the rules," explains Farber.

"My students can look at anything as a game," he adds. This, says Farber, opens the door for teachers to start thinking of themselves as game designers.

Farber teaches social studies at Valleyview Middle School, in Denville, N.J. He is also an adjunct instructor for the New Jersey City University Educational Technology Department. He is among the growing legions of educators across the country who are bringing game dynamics-competition, collaboration, points, leaderboards, and badges-into the classroom.

"A class debate, when you think about it, is really just a game," insists Farber. "When you debate, you compete, you win points. What social studies teacher hasn't used debate to engage and motivate students?"

It's a challenge for any teacher-especially ones who are new to the profession-to capture and sustain student interest. But are all strategies to motivate and engage created equal? This is one of the key questions as "gamification" takes hold in more classrooms across the country, and excited teachers spread good news about heightened levels of student motivation. But skeptics are wary about how gamification is being practiced, and question the value of what they see as outward motivators to bolster student attention and engagement.

"As educators, we may be conceding that learning isn't inherently meaningful," warns John Spencer, a teacher and education writer in Phoenix.

This is gamification's message, according to Spencer, or at least how it is often defined and practiced: "We're not going to embrace the fun, the creativity, the challenge, or the critical thinking. We're just going to give you a badge instead."
Gamification: Motivation or Pavlovian Response?
Rewards, points, badges, and other extrinsic motivators are key ingredients of gamification, particularly in the private sector, where the concept has been popularized. In 2011, the term made the short list in Oxford Dictionary's "Word of the Year," which defines gamification as "the application of typical elements of game playing to other areas of activity." In other words, you're not necessarily playing a game, but you are using the things that make a game motivating and enticing to achieve another goal.

Gamification is a popular business marketing strategy. Think the reward program at Starbucks, or the Nike+ Fuelband, which allows users to set fitness goals, track physical activity and energy burned, and compare results with other users. Both companies' concepts rely on outside motivators, and have increased brand loyalty.

It's more difficult to transfer experience to the classroom. On the surface, gamification in the classroom sounds like an extension of the tiresome trope of treating public schools like a business. "Students are customers, so let's make them want what our public schools are selling!"

The practice of dishing out points, badges, stickers and other student rewards has gained traction in many classrooms. A badge system, for example, is used in traditional classrooms and in online environments by teachers who want to reward mastery or demonstration of behaviors and skills. But to many educators, the practice-granted, the level of sophistication varies greatly- amounts to little more than a crude method to elicit a Pavlovian response from students.

"I've seen this in action and even tried it. Students will get excited, but the novelty wears off quickly," says John Spencer. "A colleague of mine was using a badge system to motivate kids to write. Soon, he allowed the students to collect badges and then turn them in for prizes. So already the badge wasn't enough. He had to add a second layer of rewards."

Kathy Sierra, a popular technology blogger, author and game developer, believes that incentivizing learning-related behaviors poses risks. Sierra says rewards should be left at the classroom door. She is critical of the way gamification is practiced in the classroom, and believes well-intentioned educators may be missing the mark.

"A well-designed game only deploys certain mechanics to support an intrinsically rewarding experience," Sierra explains. "When you remove that experience but keep the mechanics, you are now working from an entirely different psychology than actual games, and it is one that, in essence, uses mechanics to drive mechanical behaviors."

No matter their short-term appeal, educators shouldn't want to foster mechanical behaviors. "These behaviors are not associated with the kind of robust, deep, and durable motivation we want for our students," Sierra says.
Look Beneath the Surface
Matthew Farber is not keen on the term "gamification" partly because it has been too closely and unfairly associated with rewards and other external motivators. He agrees that it can be counterproductive to drive student interest through a clumsy use of badges and points.

"Obviously we can't treat students like Starbucks customers. If you focus more on extrinsic motivations, that implies that you're lacking confidence in your approach."

What's missing, Farber says, is a narrative structure that places the student on a "journey," similar to what the best games do.

"The journey is to build mastery," Farber says. "The better way to gamify is to put students in an inquiry-based or project-based learning experience. Or give them a task in a narrative frame."

It's fine to include elements like badges, points or leaderboards along the way, adds Farber, but they shouldn't be too central to the experience. Attention will likely spike and recede, and teachers have to keep in mind that these motivators are not effective for students who aren't naturally competitive.

In Farber's social studies class, students immerse themselves in historical debate-their study of the Articles of Confederation for example-using instrinsic game elements like narrative, creativity and collaboration, rather than just badges.

This is less gamification, Farber explains, and more "game-inspired learning."

Kathy Sierra sees potential in some forms of gamifiction, but says educators shouldn't be seduced by the lure and hype surrounding the concept. Instead of applying surface elements of games, she suggests teachers look beneath the surface and create the right balance of challenge and skill, deeper knowledge and high-quality feedback.

"My recommendation to educators is to not try to sugarcoat tasks in the classroom," Sierra says. "Try to find what is inherently interesting in a subject and exploit that. It doesn't matter if students roll their eyes. A good teacher can capture their attention and engage them before they even have a chance to think they aren't interested."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Gamification in the Classroom: The Right or Wrong Way to Motivate Students? - NEA Today

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What thoughts come to most students' minds when they're asked about the Articles of Confederation? If they're up on their civics, they'll know it was the first Constitution of the United States. Some will remember it as a primary source they used in a presentation.

# data[].attributes.body
uses game elements such as challenges, feedback, levels, creativity, and rewards to motivate students to learn, and master concepts.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
by Mike Acedo

In today's classroom, educators are constantly required to mold their teaching methods to give students the best opportunity to succeed. It is not only imperative for students to learn the required material, but also critical that students gain a sense of confidence toward their work, and find motivation to expand their learning.

However, this can be difficult for some students, who may struggle in traditional, lecture-based class styles. For some students, finding the motivation to complete homework or prepare for class can be a constant struggle, especially when every effort is met with a poor grade or frustration from teachers and parents. Therefore, teachers must become more and more creative when motivating students to learn.

We've talked about designing your classroom like a video game before. Games are one motivator that almost all kids are responsive to. Many teachers have had the experience of asking students to stop playing games such as Angry Birds during class. However, it can be rationalized that games can be a very strong motivator for students when the same game elements are applied in an educational context. Thus, some educators have adopted the concept of Gamification, where the structure of gaming is applied to a non-game framework.

Though some teachers may use game-based learning, such as having students play games like Little Big Planet (featuring Sackboy, pictured above), Minecraft or Civilization to reinforce content, Gamification uses game elements such as challenges, feedback, levels, creativity, and rewards to motivate students to learn, and master concepts.
How To Gamify Your Classroom: 10 Specific Ideas To Get It Done 1. Make Students Co-Designers
Present the class syllabus as a form of Gamification. Work together with students to develop the narrative of the class, as well as short, and long-term goals. Allow students to have a voice in the class design, vote on a model that agrees with everyone, work with it, learn from it, and revise it as the class goes on. As a result, students will be put behind the wheel of their own learning, allowing them to express creativity and some control over the direction of the class.

Given that the class design is a collaborative effort, it will give students a sense of ownership toward the outcome of the class, and in turn, motivate them to participate and succeed within the class narrative. Additionally, since the class and assignment design is done in a collaborative process, students who would otherwise struggle in a traditional class setting, will have the opportunity to be involved in creating a learning space they can excel in.
2. Allow Second Chances. And Third.
Like in video games, students should be allowed second chances. When a challenge is failed in a video game, users are able to learn from their mistakes, try again, and succeed. The same concept can be applied to the classroom, as students should be able to try an assignment, either succeed or fail, and try again. Students who succeed right away have the choice to either move on to a new challenge, or try to raise their score.

At the same time, students who failed the first time, have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes, and try again until they succeed. This motivates students to learn for themselves in order master skills and raise achievement, while eliminating the pressure or stigma of failure. In games, and in life, failure is an essential component of success. Students should be allowed to fail and learn from their mistakes without feeling dejected or unmotivated to try again. Though this will require more work in terms of grading for teachers, student performance and understanding will undoubtedly rise.
3. Provide Instant Feedback
This one isn't always easy, so you may need to use your noodle a bit.

In a game setting, feedback is essential for users to know how they are doing in the game. If a user makes a choice in a game, it is usually known immediately if that choice was the right one. Classrooms must work in a similar fashion, as students must be able to receive and give feedback so it is known if the steps they are taking are in the right direction. Though computers provide immediate feedback in video games, it may take a teacher a little longer to provide feedback to individual students.

Therefore, it is essential that students are able to give feedback to each other, with the instructor providing support to those who need it. Teachers can split the class up in groups or learning "teams", each with their own names and characteristics the students can customize within the classroom narrative. Students can then have the freedom to work together on assignments, provide feedback, and receive support from the instructor as needed.
4. Make Progress Visible
In games, users usually have levels or progress bars that indicate how well they are doing in the game. Gamified classrooms can implement similar elements which indicate how far along students are, and how close they are to reaching the next level. Instead of issuing grades or percentages, teachers can either issue progress bars to students, or allow them manage their own. With each completed assignment, test, or project, a certain amount of points can be added to their progress bar, bringing them closer to reaching the next level.

As high school teacher Alice Keeler explains in her gamified classroom, progress bars and levels allow students to set goals for themselves and celebrate success once achieving them. It also gives struggling students a tangible indication of how close they are to reaching the next level, allowing them to discern what they could have done better to get there. This can be tremendous for student confidence, as they are once again allowed to learn from their mistakes, and are motivated to raise their achievement to reach the next level.
5. Create Challenges Or Quests Instead Of Homework & Projects
In games, users are constantly required to meet challenges, such as identify patterns, break codes, or complete quests in order to advance. The same elements can be applied to a gamified classroom, as homework and projects can be presented in a fun, yet challenging way. By simply changing the context in which the assignments are presented, teachers transform the act of work into a more enjoyable, epic activity. Instead of assigning math homework, present it as a code that must be cracked in order to open a safe full of treats. Projects can also be presented in the similarly epic context, drawing students in to work and learn in a new way.
6. Give Students Voice & Choice
In many games, users are often given various choices that affect their progress, and the outcome of the game. Some are rewarded with extra lives or other benefits when completing harder challenges. The same choices can be implemented into gamified classrooms, allowing students different options they can use to reach their academic goals. As Alice Keeler explains in her classroom, students are given the choice to choose different paths in learning the curriculum.
7. Offer Individual Badges & Rewards
For example, instead of simply issuing a test at the end of a subject, teachers can allow students to take different paths to demonstrate their understanding of the material. Some students may choose to develop a group project and presentation, others may write an essay, make a board game, or express their understanding in other creative ways. By giving students choice, it allows them to foster and apply their knowledge in new, creative ways. Additionally, it gives them a sense of pride and ownership toward their work, which in turn fosters additional creativity and achievement
8. Have Students Design A Class-Wide Skills & Achievement System
Badges or other rewards are a good ways of recognizing student achievement and incentivizing students to continue raising their efforts in reaching academic goals. By providing a tangible symbol of achievement, badges and rewards can be very effective in celebrating certain student accomplishments, and can be a great tool for raising student confidence. Even if badges are given for simply attempting an assignment, completing extra credit, or showing continued effort in reaching a goal, the mere recognition of effort can go a long way in motivating students to learn.

With your input of course.

To encourage an entire class to continually strive to raise their academic achievement, teachers must implement more than just individual badges and rewards as incentives. Teachers can implement a class-wide reward system, where everyone can celebrate individual and collaborative accomplishments. An example can be when a student reaches a new level or point total, certain skills or power-ups can be rewarded, such as the ability to choose a class-wide activity or game to play.
9. Implement Educational Technology
If an individual or group of students reach a certain level or point total, everyone in the class gets a moderate point boost as well. This class-wide reward system not only celebrates individual achievements, but also encourages each classmate to help each other so they may all be rewarded in some way. This promotes a sense of comrade and collaboration between students, as they find themselves sailing the same ship, which requires their combined effort to reach their destination.

Though gamification does not strictly require the implementation of technology to be successful, the 21st-century student is already very accustomed to using technology in their everyday lives. Therefore, teachers have found creative ways to use technology to help enhance their gamified classes. Customizable classroom management systems such as ClassRealm have helped teachers easily manage their gamified classrooms, allowing teachers, students, and parents to track student achievements, encourage student participation through educational adventures and games, and set up academic goals for individual students.
10. Embrace Failure; Emphasize Practice
Additionally, it rewards points to students for arriving to class on time, for completing assignments, reading extra books for class, and helping fellow students. This encourages students to advance their learning beyond required boundaries, while also motivating participation and peer assistance. Educational game designer Gamestar Mechanic, and class behavior management system Class Dojo, are other popular tools that help teachers enhance student participation and achievement through gamification.

An effective gamified classroom should not merely focus on the information being taught, but on the skills achieved, and the knowledge gained. The emphasis of gamification is to provide students with a fluid environment of self-directed learning. In this capacity, students will learn meaningful skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, and an understanding of how to apply those skills. These are invaluable abilities that students will not only use in school, but throughout their own personal and professional lives.
Conclusion
Therefore, it is vital that teachers who use gamification in their classroom allow their students to try, fail, and learn, while simultaneously supporting their innate creativity and enhancing the curriculum. As previously described, by allowing students some choice and flexibility of assignments, teachers can observe what methods are working, which skills are being exercised and mastered, and can make adjustments or suggestions as student's progress through the class.
How To Gamify Your Classroom: 10 Specific Ideas To Get It Done
Though there are those who criticize gamification, it is undeniable that gamification provides students and teachers with a new and innovative way of facilitating learning. Gamification has the ability to transform the classroom to teach students practical skills, foster collaboration and creativity, as well as motivate students to advance their own learning through self-guided instruction.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
10 Specific Ideas To Gamify Your Classroom -

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
10 Specific Ideas To Gamify Your Classroom by Mike Acedo In today's classroom, educators are constantly required to mold their teaching methods to give students the best opportunity to succeed. It is not only imperative for students to learn the required material, but also critical that students gain a sense of confidence toward their work, ...

# data[].attributes.body
“A class debate, when you think about it, is really just a game,” insists Farber.  “When you debate, you compete, you win points."

“The journey is to build mastery,” Farber says. “The better way to gamify is to put students in an inquiry-based or project-based learning experience. Or give them a task in a narrative frame.”

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
What thoughts come to most students' minds when they're asked about the Articles of Confederation? If they're up on their civics, they'll know it was the first Constitution of the United States. Some will remember it as a primary source they used in a presentation. Others will only recall the Articles as a yellowed document printed in a textbook or posted online.

Matthew Farber's eighth-grade history class may view the Articles as all these things, but the document to them also represents the failed first attempt to adopt a rule-sheet to govern a game creating a U.S. government.

"The way my students see it is that the Articles was this initial rule-sheet. The country play-tested it and it flopped, so the founders replaced it with the United States Constitution, a much more detailed and effective set of instructions. The Bill of Rights then became the rules," explains Farber.

"My students can look at anything as a game," he adds. This, says Farber, opens the door for teachers to start thinking of themselves as game designers.

Farber teaches social studies at Valleyview Middle School, in Denville, N.J. He is also an adjunct instructor for the New Jersey City University Educational Technology Department. He is among the growing legions of educators across the country who are bringing game dynamics-competition, collaboration, points, leaderboards, and badges-into the classroom.

"A class debate, when you think about it, is really just a game," insists Farber. "When you debate, you compete, you win points. What social studies teacher hasn't used debate to engage and motivate students?"

It's a challenge for any teacher-especially ones who are new to the profession-to capture and sustain student interest. But are all strategies to motivate and engage created equal? This is one of the key questions as "gamification" takes hold in more classrooms across the country, and excited teachers spread good news about heightened levels of student motivation. But skeptics are wary about how gamification is being practiced, and question the value of what they see as outward motivators to bolster student attention and engagement.

"As educators, we may be conceding that learning isn't inherently meaningful," warns John Spencer, a teacher and education writer in Phoenix.

This is gamification's message, according to Spencer, or at least how it is often defined and practiced: "We're not going to embrace the fun, the creativity, the challenge, or the critical thinking. We're just going to give you a badge instead."
Gamification: Motivation or Pavlovian Response?
Rewards, points, badges, and other extrinsic motivators are key ingredients of gamification, particularly in the private sector, where the concept has been popularized. In 2011, the term made the short list in Oxford Dictionary's "Word of the Year," which defines gamification as "the application of typical elements of game playing to other areas of activity." In other words, you're not necessarily playing a game, but you are using the things that make a game motivating and enticing to achieve another goal.

Gamification is a popular business marketing strategy. Think the reward program at Starbucks, or the Nike+ Fuelband, which allows users to set fitness goals, track physical activity and energy burned, and compare results with other users. Both companies' concepts rely on outside motivators, and have increased brand loyalty.

It's more difficult to transfer experience to the classroom. On the surface, gamification in the classroom sounds like an extension of the tiresome trope of treating public schools like a business. "Students are customers, so let's make them want what our public schools are selling!"

The practice of dishing out points, badges, stickers and other student rewards has gained traction in many classrooms. A badge system, for example, is used in traditional classrooms and in online environments by teachers who want to reward mastery or demonstration of behaviors and skills. But to many educators, the practice-granted, the level of sophistication varies greatly- amounts to little more than a crude method to elicit a Pavlovian response from students.

"I've seen this in action and even tried it. Students will get excited, but the novelty wears off quickly," says John Spencer. "A colleague of mine was using a badge system to motivate kids to write. Soon, he allowed the students to collect badges and then turn them in for prizes. So already the badge wasn't enough. He had to add a second layer of rewards."

Kathy Sierra, a popular technology blogger, author and game developer, believes that incentivizing learning-related behaviors poses risks. Sierra says rewards should be left at the classroom door. She is critical of the way gamification is practiced in the classroom, and believes well-intentioned educators may be missing the mark.

"A well-designed game only deploys certain mechanics to support an intrinsically rewarding experience," Sierra explains. "When you remove that experience but keep the mechanics, you are now working from an entirely different psychology than actual games, and it is one that, in essence, uses mechanics to drive mechanical behaviors."

No matter their short-term appeal, educators shouldn't want to foster mechanical behaviors. "These behaviors are not associated with the kind of robust, deep, and durable motivation we want for our students," Sierra says.
Look Beneath the Surface
Matthew Farber is not keen on the term "gamification" partly because it has been too closely and unfairly associated with rewards and other external motivators. He agrees that it can be counterproductive to drive student interest through a clumsy use of badges and points.

"Obviously we can't treat students like Starbucks customers. If you focus more on extrinsic motivations, that implies that you're lacking confidence in your approach."

What's missing, Farber says, is a narrative structure that places the student on a "journey," similar to what the best games do.

"The journey is to build mastery," Farber says. "The better way to gamify is to put students in an inquiry-based or project-based learning experience. Or give them a task in a narrative frame."

It's fine to include elements like badges, points or leaderboards along the way, adds Farber, but they shouldn't be too central to the experience. Attention will likely spike and recede, and teachers have to keep in mind that these motivators are not effective for students who aren't naturally competitive.

In Farber's social studies class, students immerse themselves in historical debate-their study of the Articles of Confederation for example-using instrinsic game elements like narrative, creativity and collaboration, rather than just badges.

This is less gamification, Farber explains, and more "game-inspired learning."

Kathy Sierra sees potential in some forms of gamifiction, but says educators shouldn't be seduced by the lure and hype surrounding the concept. Instead of applying surface elements of games, she suggests teachers look beneath the surface and create the right balance of challenge and skill, deeper knowledge and high-quality feedback.

"My recommendation to educators is to not try to sugarcoat tasks in the classroom," Sierra says. "Try to find what is inherently interesting in a subject and exploit that. It doesn't matter if students roll their eyes. A good teacher can capture their attention and engage them before they even have a chance to think they aren't interested."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Gamification in the Classroom: The Right or Wrong Way to Motivate Students? - NEA Today

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What thoughts come to most students' minds when they're asked about the Articles of Confederation? If they're up on their civics, they'll know it was the first Constitution of the United States. Some will remember it as a primary source they used in a presentation.