Education

Benefits Of Gamification In Education

Gamification is a term that refers to game-like activities being used to encourage people to learn by having them complete learning tasks they might otherwise find uninteresting. Recent attempts at applying gamification in education has involved using the high levels of engagement and entertainment that video games provide as a teaching tool. Gamification offers many benefits and can impact students at all levels, regardless of prior academic achievement.

Following are some of the main benefits of gamification in education:

• Promotes Cognitive Development – gamification techniques have been shown to aid cognitive development because they increase activity in those areas of the brain that are responsible for reasoning and making logical connections. Games that are produced for this purpose are called ‘brain games’ and have become popular as a way of posing questions and problems for solution and have been shown to increase the rate at which the brain processes and retains information.

• Increases Engagement in the Classroom – researchers that measured the level of engagement in a classroom when gamification was used found that a game-like environment promoted engagement and increased students’ productivity.

• Improves Accessibility to Learning – an important goal in education is to encourage learning at all levels of needs and development. Gamification has been found to be an effective way of teaching students with unique learning needs, such as autism, and makes learning more accessible overall through the provision of appropriate content in games.

• Gamification is Just as Effective Outside the Classroom – gamification can be used outside the classroom as well. A child’s maths homework, for example, can be structured to that they need to get the right results in one ‘level’ before they can move to the next. Hints can be provided to help the child solve a problem that allows them to advance making the process more engaging. It is also a good way for parents to become more actively involved in their child-s education and provides a tangible method for doing so.

Games have become highly prevalent in children’s (and adults’) lives. While gamification has tended to become a buzzword in educational theory, it has been shown to provide real benefits when seeking to enhance the learning process for students at all levels of academic achievement. Most children are well-versed in the structure and effort/reward techniques of modern games and it is not a difficult leap for educators to use games that offer educational achievements rather than high scores.

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