On a planet where people spend 3 billion hours a week playing video and computer games, it's a good chance that using the tools that keep people engaged in games might work in a learning environment, too. Gamifying classes is also a good way to humanize the online, digital environment for students, according to Mark Relf, the state program coordinator for Rasmussen College, speaking to educators and allies at CompTIA's Academy Educator Conference in Phoenix.
“Gamification is not anything anyone’s cornered the market on. These are techniques and tricks we can do within our classes to make the experience a little bit better,” Relf said.
It’s like playing the license plate game on a long road trip: adding make-believe and goal setting to arduous tasks makes them more engaging.
“We’re just taking a normal, everyday experience and gamifying it to make it more enjoyable,” Relf said, adding that this process is about more than just adding entertainment value to the classroom. “Gamification means using game mechanics and logic to help us solve real problems that we deal with on a day-to-day basis.”
Finding Motivators in Gamification
Gamification makes education more engaging both in and outside the classroom, he said, highlighting current and popular methods like finding motivators, tweaking the grading system, noting achievements and awarding badges.
Using intrinsic motivators like challenge, control, fantasy and curiosity, plus extrinsic motivators like cooperation, competition, recognition, teachers can nudge students toward being inspired to learn, rather than deterred, he said.
Simple changes to the grading system can also help. Studies have shown traditional letter grading — A, B, C, D and F — doesn’t motivate like it used to. Instead of pushing C students to work harder, it actually puts more pressure on above-average students to stay there.
“The above average student feels a higher level of stress being in that position,” he said. “So how can we help curb that thought process?”
Game grading, he said, can be done without changing the original content or teaching methods. Instead of giving students letter grades, you incentivize hard work — not the fear of failure. “In video games, progress begets progress,” he said. “In a video game, you respond and you go again and you do it again and again until you get it — progress begets progress.”
Instead of using letter grades, Relf uses “experience points” for his assignments. For example, a lecture is worth 2,000 experience points, and a lab is worth 3,000. As a teacher, you can add up the points and calculate the average, like you would with traditional letter grades, but package it as experience for the gamification effect.
Experience points are also a chance to create cooperation — another good motivator for students — by offering a challenge like, “If everybody reaches this level, we all get an extra 1000 points.”
“Students understand experience more than they understand letter grading in schools,” Relf said. “It’s just something you can add into your class to gamify the experience.”
Acknowledging achievement and awarding badges can also be positive motivators for students. “An achievement can be something miniscule or something more dramatic,” he said. “Either way, it improves the social and academic atmospheres.”
Achievement points can be awarded for things like helping another student, or offering up an intriguing question in a class forum. Relf offers these points in lieu of extra credit. “Students want challenge, curiosity and control,” he reiterated, “and there’s ways to spark them within these little motivational tools.”
He’s also a fan of badges to signify simple achievements, like good behavior or helping a peer. Badges have been shown to cause a huge increase in retention, student morale and student loyalty to the school, he said. “The students love going through and seeing the different achievements,” he said, going on to explain how badges can be used to create an even more dynamic gamification tool: a leader board.
Badges also act as a visual reminder of achievement. Relf creates simple graphics for his students’ badges in Mozilla, which he likes because it’s free, customizable and includes metadata so students actually have to achieve what the badge says before they can “earn” and display it on websites, LinkedIn or social media.
“Unlike achievements, badges stay with the user after they complete a certain course,” he said.
CompTIA’s new learning tool CertMaster also uses gamification to help students prepare for exams like CompTIA A+. For more on how gamification can help students engage, visit the CertMaster and sign up for a free trial.
Michelle Peterson is a communications specialist for CompTIA.
