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Children can reinforce skills they are learning in the classroom by playing non-competitive games.

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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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Building a confident learning environment for the future through gaming!

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How to create gamified learning for your classroom:

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How to create gamified learning for your classroom:

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Taking teaching to the next level by creating games that follow your own lesson plans.

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What are some tools or methods you use to design a gamified learning environment for your students? What worked and what didn't work out ...

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Answer (1 of 2): There are several tools and methods that can be used to design a gamified learning environment for students. Some popular ones include: - Game-based learning platforms such as Kahoot!, Quizlet, and Classcraft - Badges and achievements to incentivize learning and track progress ...

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Gamification; Beginnings, Benefits, before technology 

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Beginnings and Benefits of Gamifications

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Beginnings and Benefits of Gamifications

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Gamification has been traced to the 19th century. Dmitri Mendeleev, the Russian scientist credited for the Periodic Table of Elements, used cards to create the table. He published the chart with missing elements and other scientist were able to help complete the table.

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5 Benefits of Gamification

Dmitri Mendeleev was a Russian scientist and educator in the 19th century who is often credited as the scientist that first published the Periodic Table of Elements. However, what people do not know is that he may have been one of the first scientists to use gamification to complete an educational task.

Dmitri Mendeleev

The term gamification can be used in two ways. The first way is by adopting the act of playing a video game into everyday use. The engagement levels and entertainment values of video gaming can motivate users to accomplish tasks that are normally viewed as boring, such as learning. Another definition of gamification is the act of using game elements to make non-games more enjoyable. 1

Mendeleev was known to have been an avid card player, so it was logical for him to use cards as a way to categorize the elements in a way he could understand. Mendeleev turned the classification process into a card game by listing each element and other information on a card and placing them face up on a table. By doing this, he was able to have a better grasp on the relationship of each element. Mendeleev published his findings, which led scientists to discover new elements to fill in the gaps of Mendeleev's work as well as further developing the table.

Growing up, Mendeleev was not the most successful student, but he became a historical scientific figure because of gamification. This proves as an exemplary example of the benefits of gamification and the impact it can have on all students despite their prior academic achievement.
Here are a few of the benefits of gamification: Gamification aids in cognitive development in adolescents.
Using gamification to aid in cognitive development will allow an increase in the activity of the regions of the brain to allow for adequate development. Games that are produced specifically for enhancing cognitive development are often referred to as "brain games." Brain games have become increasingly popular and are based on various questions and problems that the user has to answer or solve. Brain games can improve the rate in which the brain processes and maintains information. 2
In some cases, it aids in physical development.
Exercising with an interactive game is just as effective as normal exercise. This form of exercise will be very beneficial in adolescents that enjoy playing video games but are not currently physically active. There are many long-term benefits to being active.
Gamification increases level of engagement in classrooms.
Scientists performed a study to measure the level of engagement students displayed when utilizing gamification in the classroom.3 The researchers assigned a point system to various daily class activities. Then the students were measured based on their level of engagement. The researchers found that the game-like atmosphere was favorable in the classroom and increased productivity.
Gamification aids in accessibility in the classroom.
Gamification can be used as a teaching tool to educate adolescents of all needs. Scientists studied the effectiveness of using gamification in the form of a video game to teach students diagnosed with autism.4 The results of this study showed that this training package was effective in teaching age-appropriate content through gamification.
Gamification isn't limited to the classroom.
Gamification is not limited to the classroom but can be used in learning outside the classroom. Perhaps you break up your child's math homework into sections. The child will then level up after completing each section to get hints that will solve a riddle. Or maybe you can have your child create their very own Periodic Table with a few elements just like Mendeleev did with cards. Gamification at home is also a good way to get involved in your child's education!
Students participating in gamification in the classroom.
As gamification becomes more of a buzzword, it is important to not write it off. There are many benefits to gamification that help in enhancing the learning process for students at all academic levels. Hopefully, one day the term gamification will no longer be a buzzword and will be a ubiquitous term used in classrooms. After all, gamification has been around for over a century--Mendeleev is proof.
References

1.) Deterding, S., Dixon, D., Khaled, R., & Nacke, L. (2011). From game design elements to gamefulness: defining "gamification". Proceedings of the MindTrek '11. doi:10.1145/2181037.2181040

2.) Doraiswamy, P. M., Agronin, M. (2009). Brain games: do they really work? http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=brain-games...

3.) Bustard, D. W., Black, M. M., Charles, T., Moore, A. A., McKinney, M. E. T., Moffett, P. (2011). GEL: A generic tool for game-enhanced learning. Unpublished research, University of Ulster, Coleraine, United Kingdom.

4.) Blum-Dimaya, A., Reeve, S. A., Reeve, K. F. (2010). Teaching children with autism to play a video game using activity schedules and game embedded simultaneous video modeling. Education and Treatment of Children, 33 (3). http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/education_and_treatment_of_chil...

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Dmitri Mendeleev was a Russian scientist and educator in the 19th century who is often credited as the scientist that first published the Periodic Table of Elements. However, what people do not know is that he may have been one of the first scientists to use gamification to complete an educational task.

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Just One of Many Websites To Create Gamification for Your Classroom

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Just One of Many Websites To Create Gamification for Your Classroom

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Along with Kahoot, I also found these websites to aid in gamification. Duolingo, ClassDojo, and Brainscape to name a few.

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Kahoot! | Learning games | Make learning awesome!

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Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform that brings engagement and fun to 1+ billion players every year at school, at work, and at home.

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Melissa Trehern

University of Mobile

​​Course Number:​ TE 405

Dr. Jessica Freeland

February 18,2024

https://ssec.si.edu/stemvisions-blog/5-benefits-gamification

https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-tools-or-methods-you-use-to-design-a-gamified-learning-environment-for-your-students-What-worked-and-what-didnt-work-out-well

https://www.edutopia.org/article/using-gamification-ignite-student-learning/

https://kahoot.com/