Narrative Arcs

A key element of a gamified experience is the immersion in a story, that provides a different context for the experience.

Various storylines have been created, for easy adaptation to your learning activities.

Character Profiles

A corollary to storytelling are compelling characters, which students can connect with and root for.

A collection of archetypal characters is provided, ready to serve as the hero of your gamified learning experience.

Balancing Intrinsic-Extrinsic Motivation

A gamified learning experience should excite learners to want to learn more about the topic/subject.

Consider a range of risk-reward ideas so as to vary the incentives for different learning activities.

Encouraging Productive Struggle

Games are a safe space to try, try and try again. Encouraging learners to struggle without judgement is important.

You may want to consider allowing multiple tries for any quizzes or games you include in the gamified learning experience.

Beyond Instructional Feedback

There are many types of feedback. Games are good at providing feedback about the activity/task and about progression in general.

Consider mechanisms that enable you to provide non-instructional feedback to inform students about their overall learning trajectories.

Shorter Feedback Cycles

Whether you progress or not within a game, feedback on how you are doing is immediate and constant.

You can adapt the leaderboard or badges to give your learners more immediate and regular feedback on their learning progress.

Developing Metacognition

Apart from game/lesson progress indicators, students need to develop strategies to help take stock of their learning.

The class and self reflection activities can be easily adapted to help students link the gamified learning experience to the intended learning outcomes.

Self-Monitoring Tools

Games require players to self-monitor their status and progress and then respond by formulating appropriate strategies. The same can be said for learning.

The self-monitoring questions and tools can be quickly tailored to suit the learning outcomes and guide students to keep track of their learning.