It’s an easy assumption to make that in order to incorporate game elements into your teaching, you need to find a fully functional, ready-made game that fits your topic or objective. But thankfully, this level of investment into game-based learning isn’t necessary. You can elevate your lessons and discover the benefits of gamification without spending money, scouring the web for games or pulling out any devices.
All gamification in the classroom should have a purpose and support the learning objectives so that students are personally connected to learning and retain the information. Here are 8 ways to boost your classroom instruction with gamification techniques.
1. Set an Objective
Every game ever designed has an objective, and since every lesson does too, this is probably the easiest thing to implement in daily teaching and learning.
The key to setting gamified objectives is to identify the most passive section of your lesson, and give the children a personal objective to complete, turning the learning from passive to active. This shouldn’t take away from your main lesson objective but scaffold it and give students more opportunities to see their own progress. This means that throughout the activities in your lesson, students are enjoying small successes, spurring them onward through the session.
Need children to sit and listen to an extract, or watch a video? Promote active listening by giving them a bingo sheet of key vocabulary to listen out for, or three questions to listen out for the answers to. Come back to your objective once the video has ended, to draw out the learning you want to see.
This list’s following points rely on your lesson having clear, achievable objectives, so it’s worth spending some time to make sure children know the goal and the rules.
2. Establish Point Systems
Point systems can be applied to almost any setting with a bit of imagination. You can provide students with points every time they: write ten sentences using adverbs, underline a heading, identify a double negative, complete a math equation… the list is endless!
It’s up to you how you record these points, and who keeps score. If it’s distracting or time-consuming, then it’s not right for the situation. Perhaps the most fluid method is a tally on the display board, so that you decide when the class gets a point. Or, put a leaderboard on the wall with levels for children to move their own names up through, with your permission. There are also some interactive apps that allow you to allocate points to students and allows them to do it themselves, too.
The key is not to overuse this technique, or it loses its meaning. Pick something that students might do once or twice a day, but no more. Why not change the focus & rules every week so that all children get an opportunity to shine, and the challenge stays fresh?
3. Reward Successes
Try to make the points important for some reason – what do points lead to? Perhaps when the class gets to 20 points, they get five minutes of reward time at the end of the day?
Here are some ideas for how to reward your class or individual students:
- Extra recess
- Learning outside
- Show and tell session
- Classroom jobs
- Positive notes home
- Stickers/merchandise
- No homework
You could also allow students to choose their own reward from a limited number of options, creating an even more personal incentive.
4. Encourage Healthy Competition
Many educators have a love-hate relationship with competition in the classroom. It can bring out the best in some children and is certainly motivating. Studies show that high-achieving students are highly motivated by competition – but it can also send the message that winning is the most important objective, and alienate less able students. Alex Murray explains the positives and negatives of competition in his article ‘Competition as a Teaching Strategy’ (2019). So, how do educators get around the concerns related to competition and allow everyone to benefit?
Don’t forget that students can compete against themselves, too! Consider allowing students to track their own score, and celebrate personal bests. Here is an example of a multiplication exercise where the student must fill in the empty squares to complete the chart – and all they have to do is complete it in a faster time than the previous week.
What’s great about this technique is that you can differentiate the exercise for every student. It doesn’t matter if two children have a different level of challenge, because they are not competing against each other.
5. Set a Time Limit
Time limits help to keep students focused on the task at hand. If you want the students to clean up, challenge them to be back in their seats with a tidy desk by the time the timer goes off.
Give students visibility on the time remaining for longer tasks, so they can see how long they have left and can learn to divide up their time and prioritize. There are lots of free countdown timers online. As mentioned in the last point, encouraging them to beat a previous time brings an additional level of gamification.
Also, as a bonus – setting time limits helps to keep you organized and your day on track!
6. Tell a Story
Gamification requires us to employ some of the ideas that game designers use to engage players. We’ve talked about the importance of having an objective to strive for – and an objective is something that all good stories have.
You might assume that storytelling is meant for ELA, or Social Studies – but that’s not necessarily true. In fact, for students whose preconception is that Math is dull or difficult, adding a story element can completely change the game.
And it doesn’t have to be complicated. If you want them to solve 30 division problems, start with something like this: “Today, we’re on a mission. This government building contains a map to a wonderful treasure – but it’s been torn into 30 pieces, each one hidden behind a locked door. Each door requires us to solve a problem to open it.”
Combined with rewards for opening each door such as a torn piece of map (a piece of A4 paper torn into 30 pieces) and some sort of final discovery (see our list of rewards ideas above), students will work together to complete the mission because it simply doesn’t feel like work any more. Why not play ‘spy mission’ music while you introduce the idea?!
7. Use Classic Game Elements
This technique requires a little more preparation but likely involves objects that are already available in school. A simple way to shake up activities is to employ common features that many games share. You may already use some of these in your teaching, as many have already made the transition from classic games into common classroom practice:
Use a pair of dice to randomly select a child, an activity, a number or, well, anything!
Put activities, writing prompts, questions and more on the backs of cards for a bit of mystery.
Move children along a track much like you might find in a board game, to help them visibly see their progress and reach a goal.
Allow students to unlock new levels of difficulty or customization when they complete an objective.
Set up a game like Connect Four at the front of the room and allow students to put in a disc as a reward – the whole class versus you! Other games like Jenga, Hangman, Checkers, Snakes and Ladders work well too.
8. Provide Feedback
Feedback doesn’t have to mean a graded assignment, or a conversation. All students need is to visibly see their own progress, in order to foster some intrinsic motivation. Here are some ways that you can provide instant feedback while students are working on their objectives:
- Display a leaderboard visible to everyone
- Allow students to move themselves along a track or through levels
- Give out points
- Present repetitive tasks such as math questions on cards that can be turned over or otherwise marked as complete
- Use interactive tools which provide instant feedback on students’ decisions
Gamifying your lessons doesn’t have to mean you throw your existing plans out the window, instead, there are many structures you can establish into your classroom to bring gamification across all lessons and learning opportunities!
