At some point in your life, you may have had a conversation with friends or family about the teacher or teachers who you remember the most. Like myself and my colleagues, a common response as to why you remember that particular teacher is because they made class fun. For me, I remember my my fifth grade teacher the most because he would incorporate games into our lessons to get us excited to participate. He used gamification to get us to remember key facts, ideas, and equations, many of which I can still vividly remember to this day.

Gamification and game-based learning

Gamification in the classroom is having its moment as a solution to keeping students engaged and able to retain information. By definition, gamification is the process of transforming lessons into enhanced learning experiences. These experiences motivate and engage students differently than in the traditional classroom by using game elements. Game-based learning is essentially using games to review educational content. 

My fifth grade teacher did not have access to the amazing digital resources available to teachers today, but I remember the chalkboard had index cards taped to it. It would be set up Jeopardy style, where pulling a card would reveal a question that needed to be answered by a team of students. This is probably why I still watch Jeopardy to this day! But that definitely took a ton of preparation, as today’s resources can save you tons of time while still engaging your students. 

Check out the game-based resources provided in Lumio or other great platforms such as Quizizz or BreakoutEDU. If you’ve ever thought about incorporating gamification into your classroom, but were not sure how, end-of-year test preparation is a great place to try it out with your class.

Why use gamification?  

Here are 3 reasons why you should be gamifying your end of year test prep:

1. 67% of students found gamified learning more motivating and engaging. (Intuition, 2019)
2. Challenge-based gamification leads to a 34.75% increase in student performance. (Science Direct, 2020)
3. Students who participated in challenge-based gamification raised their performance by 89% compared to those sitting through lectures. (Science Direct, 2020)

Gamifying your lessons will spark your students’ intrinsic or extrinsic motivation, depending on how you implement it.  For students who enjoy gaming and competition, gamification can increase their intrinsic motivation. Creating a point system for students, badges to earn, or a leaderboard to compare progress with others are examples of ways to extrinsically motivate students. 

With this “leveling-up” approach to gamifying your classroom, students are able to explore content and earn badges and achievements. You can also make it so that there is no single winner. This allows students to work at their own pace to achieve milestones. As with all games, friendly competition encourages most students to want to master the material.  

I wish that all my teachers used gamification in the classroom throughout the years. There may have been a few more of them on my list of favorites if they had. Wouldn’t it be an honor to be a part of a former students’ list of favorite teachers? 

For more on game-based learning and gamification for your end of year activities, check out the course, Gamify Your End of Year Test Prep. To find even more courses on gamification, head to the OTIS Course Library and search under the “gamification” tag.

For more tips, tricks, and tools for teaching in and out of the classroom, check out more content on the Teq Talk blog or our YouTube channels OTIS for educators and Tequipment.

We also offer virtual professional development, training, and support with OTIS for educators. Explore the technology and strategies that spark student success — no matter where teaching or learning are happening!

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