What’s the Difference Between Playing Games and Gamified Learning?
Learning new skills and knowledge should be an adventure. When a kid explores the world around them, one word that shouldn’t come up is boring. When learning is interactive and engaging, students are better able to absorb new concepts. A great way to become fully involved in using, practicing, and mastering new skills is through games and gamified learning. That is why Spark Education is following up on our Education & Innovation series with “Learning with Games & Gamification!” Check out how making learning fun helps kids want to learn!
What’s the Difference Between Playing Games and Gamified Learning?
Games and gamified learning are both interactive, fun ways to learn and use educational skills, so why are they always mentioned separately? While both share many aspects, there’s a huge difference between educational games and gamified learning. Games are great for using skills and rewarding you for playing, while gamified learning use aspects of games to make learning fun. Let’s go over what makes educational games and gamified learning great ways to interact, practice, and make learning fun.
Games use skills and knowledge to achieve goals
Games have become a part of everyday life for both kids and adults. Play is a fun way to take a breath and relax. One of the biggest reasons games are so fun is because they put forward challenges that make people use their skills to succeed.
Whether it’s finding the princess in the right castle or bankrupting your family in Monopoly, the joy of winning makes the experience worth it. Educational games use skills like reading and math to achieve goals and succeed. With educational games, in order to be a fun experience, you need to have the skills necessary to win before you start playing. If you don’t know the rules and keep losing, they can become frustrating and make people want to stop playing.
Educational games are an interactive activity that help practice concepts and knowledge in a rewarding way. They help support the skills people already have by using them in a way that’s rewarding. An Oxford University study finds that games help people feel more confident with what they are learning and connect more to the people they are playing with. Using new skills with others makes those skills part of everyday life. (Check out our blog on why peer learning is important).
People like playing games because the playing experience is positive; they get rewarded (or win) based on their skills. But what if they need to first learn the skills needed to win? Can they feel the same motivation when they are learning those skills?
Gamified learning takes the excitement of games and adds them to teaching lessons
The answer to the question is yes. We can make learning new skills fun and rewarding–with gamified learning!
Gamified learning (or gamification of learning) is a way to include aspects of gaming in educational lessons. When learning a new concept in school, after learning the concepts, students will usually have a few examples to try the new skills out for themselves. While worksheets and example questions have always been used, adding gaming mechanics and rewards to practicing those new concepts makes students more engaged and want to continue using those new skills and learning new ones.
Gamified learning can help improve the learning experience. Aspects of games and gaming mechanics that make using new skills more exciting than just being corrected on mistakes after being reviewed by a teacher. Gamified learning can also encourage learners to try again after making a mistake because there is an instant reward after they correct their answers. Being able to experiment and resolve issues themselves makes understanding new skills a challenge that can be worked with, explored, and reviewed more closely.
Feeling rewarded learning with games & gamification.
Feeling rewarded is an aspect of gaming that makes it so easy to want to excel when using gamified learning. Being able to level up, move on to new worlds, or achieve record scores gives students a sense of pride and accomplishment. Not only can students find it rewarding to hit goals and achievements on their own, but through online play, they learn the importance of working in a team.
When gamified learning is done in a classroom or group setting, students feel more comfortable helping each other. A learning journey should never be done alone. With the support of teachers, parents, and other students, learning is no longer a chore; it’s a journey. Instead of having to solve a series of questions alone, it can become a quest filled with Wizards and Elves working together to defeat an ancient monster. Who knew solving math problems had so much power?
Gamified Learning and Spark Education!
Spark Education’s online classes are about making learning a fun, interactive experience for every student. Our gamified learning approach is part of every class. Our proprietary, unique gamified learning experience includes amazing characters and high-level animation that are further elevated by the pod-sized classroom setup where kids work with other students in small online classes, with live, real-time teachers to support it all.
Whether a student doesn’t feel challenged in school or isn’t learning in a way they connect to, Spark Education makes schoolwork fun, and engaging and helps build a passion for learning. Learning is a fantastic quest, and with Spark Education, every student can achieve anything.
Looking to check out Spark Education for yourself? Spark Math Classes are currently available. Spark Math is an education program perfect for helping kids use the skills they learned all year in fun and engaging ways. Available for students from Pre-K to 6th grade, Spark Math’s online program features online classes, gamified lessons, and a real experienced teacher. Try it for yourself by signing up to try a free demo class today!
Want to find out what your student should know before entering the new school year or some fun STEM activities by grade? Check out our Spark Education blog for great news and activities the whole family can enjoy. Check out our Pinterest Page for more fun activities!
