Learning is serious business. But it can be fun!
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As promised in my last blog post, “Learning Should Be a ‘Flow,’ Not a ‘Struggle,’” today I’ll discuss the topic of “gamification” in education.
I’ll start by criticizing the term itself, an Anglicism derived from “gamification.” It’s a completely unnecessary adaptation into Portuguese (or is it a “semi-adaptation,” since, based on common pronunciation, the spelling should be “gueimificação”?). Our dictionaries offer us a word with the same meaning and, in my opinion, a more beautiful one: “ludificação.” Unfortunately, the imported, ugly, and unpronounceable term is the one that predominates in Brazilian literature on the subject. It seems that we Brazilians like to elevate concepts by using foreign loanwords to identify them. It’s a kind of culture of terminological“gourmetization.” Oops, I just shot myself in the foot by using a Gallicism! Sorry… oops, again!!! Oops: “oops” is also an Anglicism. Okay (oops), I’d better wrap up this paragraph here.
Well, having made it clear that I prefer the term “ludificação, ” I will continue to use “gamification, ” since that is how my colleagues—who are far more knowledgeable on the subject than I am and serve as my references—write it.
The first thing to clarify is that “gamification” is not the same as using games in education. As noted in the previously mentioned article, the state of consciousness known as “flow” (yes, another unnecessary Anglicism—sorry…) is very commonly experienced by those engaged in a playful activity, but it can also occur during “serious” activities. The idea behind the concept I’m discussing in this text is to apply, when designing activities that aren’t games, certain techniques that are well known to game designers and that facilitate entering a state of flow. Thus, by incorporating game elements, mechanics, and strategies into educational content, such content can become more fun and engaging, without the need (and without the associated difficulties and costs) to turn it into actual games.
The same student who feels bored and unmotivated when studying school material or working on assignments and activities requested by teachers is able to study diligently and stay engaged for hours—without losing focus—in activities that are potentially tedious and repetitive. This student does not hesitate to learn, conduct research, solve problems, build artifacts, and do whatever else is necessary to overcome the challenges that arise during a game, as long as those challenges are neither too far above nor too far below their skill level. Gamification seeks to create conditions for this kind of engagement to occur in other activities, such as educational ones.
Gamification is often confused with the inclusion of scores, medals, rewards, rankings, and similar elements. Although such elements typically appear in games, simply incorporating these devices into educational activities does not usually yield good results. If “rewards” are the only elements of “gamification,” we’ll be relying solely on extrinsic motivation (a topic I addressed in this other post on this same blog:“If motivating students is difficult, at least know how not to demotivate them”). This type of motivation doesn’t usually yield good results because it isn’t authentic; it distracts from the main focus, distorts the activity (the goal becomes improving scores and winning more rewards, regardless of the means used to achieve them), encourages competition, and inhibits collaboration. Good motivation—intrinsic motivation—comes from the pleasure of engaging in the activity itself, from overcoming challenges, and from seeing meaning and purpose in the actions being carried out. Any rewards should be a consequence, not the goal.
To illustrate the possibilities of gamification, I present below some game design principles that can be applied to make educational content more engaging:
Objectives: to set clear and achievable goals, while ensuring that students are aware that they can achieve them.
Challenges: just like the objectives, they must be clear and balanced in relation to the students’ skills; challenges are not necessarily sub-objectives (parts of the main objectives); they can be obstacles that merely make the journey to the final destination more difficult, included to balance challenges and competencies; the possibilities are endless, such as time constraints or the inclusion of puzzles along the “path” of the activity; the more closely related they are to the educational content itself and to the narrative, the better, since challenges taken out of context can distract from the educational objectives.
Feedback: Make students aware of the results of their actions, if possible in real time or at short intervals.
Progress: a special type of feedback that provides information on how the activity is progressing, what has already been achieved, and what remains to be achieved—that is, the student’s position along the path to completing their mission; scores and distinctions can be used for this purpose, but care must be taken to avoid leading the student to view these elements as goals in and of themselves, as discussed above.
Freedom of choice: offering options and alternatives, providing opportunities for choices and decisions to be made, in order to increase the sense of autonomy;
Narrative: Good games have a narrative and use storytelling techniques (oops!); people are interested in stories, and they become engaged when their goals and challenges are set within a context, when the activity makes sense and has a purpose; engagement is even greater when the narrative relates to important causes or when players can identify with the situation.
Relationships: foster a sense of belonging, community, and empathy, promoting collaboration and interaction with peers and society.
Protagonism: Placing the student as a participant in the narrative, with the power to influence the course of events, makes them feel empowered and present; many games allow the player to control a character who represents them and acts on their behalf within the fictional universe where the action unfolds; this connection between the character and the person controlling them is very strong and helps foster engagement and interest.
Adaptation and customization: adapt one or more of the elements listed above, based on the profile and behavior of each student (or group of students), to achieve better results.
If you’re a teacher or instructional designer and aren’t yet very familiar with the concept of gamification, I suggest you analyze the activities and content you typically use with your students in light of the elements presented above. You may identify small adjustments or adaptations that can be made to make them more engaging. Or perhaps you’ll discover that they’re already gamified and you didn’t even know it. In this case—or if you already consciously gamify your lessons or seek out gamified content—your students are lucky, because they’ve likely already discovered that learning is serious business, but it can also be fun.
Scenes from the next episode
When discussing agency, I mentioned the possibility of placing the student within the narrative through a character who represents them and acts as their alter ego. This character is also known as an avatar, especially in the context of metaverses. Unless you’ve been on a retreat for the past few months—without internet or other forms of communication—you’ve certainly read or heard about the “metaverse.” What’s interesting is that metaverses are naturally gamified environments, as they already offer avatars, feedback, agency, context, narrative, and relationships—in addition to having the “look and feel” of games and using the language and technology of digital games.
More on metaverses and avatars in my next post. Until then.
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