How To Make The Learning Process More Efficient With Gamification Of E-learning?
Highlights:
- What Is Gamification In E-learning?
- Benefits Of Gamification In Training And Development
- Examples Of Gamification In E-learning
- How to Use Gamification in E-Learning and Corporate Training
- Best Tips for E-Learning Gamification
- 5 Most Effective E-Learning Games For Corporate Training
- Summing up
Everyone heard about this term. Some believe it is a magic way to improve everything it touches. It was a matter of time before people began implementing gamification in corporate training. Today, we will uncover details on this approach to training and highlight the benefits your company and employees can get from implementing these elements in learning and training.
Many companies are struggling with hiring and retaining workers. Things get even more complicated these days as people become mobile and gain access to international markets. Today the market is characterized by hardcore competition between companies and workers. This makes employee and customer onboarding a cornerstone for any company. Gamified training helps to overcome this, as it offers a large world of engaging opportunities.
What Is Gamification In E-learning?
First, let's find common ground on a fundamental understanding of the idea before discussing gamified training. In simple terms, gamification focuses on adding gaming elements to environments unrelated to gaming. These elements come in a wide range, from point systems and leaderboards to functional gameplay elements and awards.
One may find examples of how gamification use cases in various fields of human activities and industries. The reason for the positive effect is pretty simple: people love to win and get achievements. Humans want to strive to achieve better results continuously. Unsurprisingly, leaderboards, achievements, and other features increase engagement and performance.
So, are gamification and e-learning even compatible? Like children learn better via games, adults show increased attention and engagement when encountering certain gamified elements in learning. Certain elements, for example, leaderboards, help a great deal in e-learning to provide a friendly competition that motivates learners. Plus, it is a fun and stress-free way to track their progress.
Adding gamified elements into e-learning doesn't mean creating a video game. Your course won’t look childish. Advanced mobile e-learning platforms look simple, solid, and must be effective. You don’t build content around a game but use elements to make learning more pleasing, engaging, and effective.
Benefits Of Gamification In Training And Development
Do e-learning games for adults help in their routine? Converting training from routine into an exciting process and, in some cases, even into a wonderful adventure that keeps learners' attention for a long time. Next, I want to show its benefits for learners and company owners.
Value From The Learners' Point Of View
- Learning becomes enjoyable
Adding gamification elements helps a great deal to bring joy to learners. When learning is enjoyable, engaging, and pleasant, we don't search for ways to avoid or skip it. Well-made training material makes the process exciting, and game elements make the process enjoyable. It works as a system.
- Engagement boost
A boost in engagement by such elements can be a game changer that saves time. Game-like components in learning are highly motivational. With AcademyOcean, mastering new skills will become easier and take less time due to a boost in motivation and engagement.
Value From The Point Of View Of Companies
So, game elements have a significant positive impact on learners, allowing them to obtain new skills with joy. So how do gamification techniques in education help you grow your business?
- Shorten onboarding time
Onboarding is a real problem for large companies that must introduce their work to all the company's practices, policies, and values. In this case, creating e-learning courses sounds like a great plan, and gamification is the last spice that makes the educational dish perfect. It saves the time required for onboarding by making it more engaging and natural.
- Boost employee retention
Employee retention is another problem for businesses. True, it is no panacea, but it still may help a great deal to motivate workers to stay with your business. You see, the lack of constant progress is what often motivates workers to change their employment. Your company can offer employers various courses with gamification elements to help them grow.
- Keep staff skills up to date
The market is highly competitive nowadays. The difference in employee skills decides whether a company wins or loses this competition. It is important to arrange training courses, and gamification elements ensure your regular training courses will not become a boring routine.
Examples Of Gamification In E-learning
- Point system
Points are a significant motivating factor. A great example of this strategy is to give such points for reaching the main objectives. You may also grant points for achieving less significant goals. For example, you can praise workers with points both for productive working and meeting learning objectives, facilitating overall success, and tracking progress.
- Highlighting performance
By openly sharing performance, you let learners identify and evaluate their progress. Thus, they can self-assess their knowledge and plan future progress. For this purpose, one can use certificates and badges.
- Adding Grade system
Various leveling and checkpoint systems are a fantastic way to make the learners feel the progression. Leveling motivates them to learn what they are going to meet next, holding their concentration and focusing on the right aspects.
How to Use Gamification in E-Learning and Corporate Training
Gamification is a powerful technique that combines game elements with educational content to enhance engagement and motivation in e-learning and corporate training programs. Here, I am exploring how gamification of training can be effectively utilized in two areas: Employee Onboarding Missions and Simulations for Compliance Training. Lets start with a step by step instruction
Step 1: Set clear learning objectives
Determine what the learners need to know and what their learning goals are. This helps to create a structured learning path and measure progress.
Step 2: Identify game elements to use
Choose game elements that are appropriate for the learning objectives, such as points, badges, levels, and leaderboards. This creates a sense of achievement and competition.
Step 3: Design the e-learning course with game elements
Incorporate game elements into the e-learning course, such as interactive quizzes, challenges, and simulations. This makes the learning process more engaging and enjoyable.
Step 4: Provide feedback and rewards
Offer immediate feedback and rewards for progress and achievements. This motivates learners and reinforces positive behaviour.
Step 5: Evaluate the effectiveness of the gamification strategy
Assess the effectiveness of the gamification strategy by measuring the learners' performance, engagement, and satisfaction. Use the data to make improvements and adjustments as needed.
Employee Onboarding Missions
Employee onboarding is a critical process that sets the tone for new employees' engagement and success within an organization. Companies can create a more immersive and interactive experience by incorporating e learning games into onboarding programs. Here's how to use gamification in employee onboarding missions:
Quests and Challenges: Design onboarding missions as quests and challenges that new employees need to complete. Gamification of an online course could include tasks such as watching training videos, reading company policies, and completing quizzes. Progression through levels or earning badges can be used to enhance motivation.
Leaderboards and Competition: Introduce leaderboards to foster healthy competition among new hires. Visibly displaying their progress and achievements encourages engagement and a sense of accomplishment.
Rewards and Recognition: Offer rewards or virtual badges to new employees upon completing onboarding missions. This recognition system provides a sense of accomplishment and reinforces positive behavior.
Interactive Scenarios: Incorporate interactive scenarios that simulate real-life situations new employees may encounter. New hires can develop the necessary skills and knowledge by making choices and experiencing consequences in a safe environment via a gamification study.
Simulations for Compliance Training
Compliance training is essential for organizations to ensure adherence to legal and regulatory requirements. By integrating gamification learning into compliance training programs, companies can enhance learners' understanding and retention of compliance concepts. Here are the gamification examples in elearning showing how to leverage gamification in compliance training simulations:
Realistic Simulations: Create interactive and realistic simulations that replicate compliance-related scenarios employees may encounter. The list could include data privacy breaches, ethical dilemmas, or workplace safety incidents. Employees can learn through experience and make informed decisions by actively participating in these scenarios.
Immediate Feedback and Guidance: Provide immediate feedback and guidance within the simulation to help learners understand the consequences of their choices. It allows employees to learn from their mistakes and make better decisions in real-life situations.
Progression and Mastery: Divide compliance training into levels or stages, gradually increasing the complexity of scenarios as learners progress. Thus, it provides a sense of achievement and motivates employees to advance and master compliance knowledge and skills.
Gamified Assessments: Transform compliance assessments into gamified experiences by incorporating timers, leaderboards, and rewards. It assesses employees' understanding, reinforces their knowledge, and creates a more engaging assessment process.
Best Tips for E-Learning Gamification
Firstly, you need to approach it strategically to maximize its effect. In this part of the article, I offer the best tips for incorporating gamification into e-learning programs. These tips include starting small but not cutting corners, prioritizing the learning over the game, some offer education gamification examples, and being clear on criteria and progression.
Start Small, but Don'tDon't Cut Corners
Define Clear Objectives: Start by clearly defining the learning objectives you want to achieve through gamification. Identify specific knowledge or skills you want learners to acquire or improve. Thus, you can add gamification and match them with training goals.
Begin with Simple Mechanics: Start small by incorporating the most straightforward mechanics. The simplest education gamification examples are leaderboards, badges, and levels. Introduce these elements gradually to ensure learners understand how they work.
Quality Content is Key: gaming elements can enhance engagement; they should not replace quality and valuable content. Ensure that the learning material is well-developed, relevant, and interactive. The gamified elements complement the content and give additional motivation for learners.
Provide Feedback: Incorporate feedback mechanisms that provide immediate and constructive feedback to learners. It can be in scores, progress indicators, or personalized feedback on results. Feedback reinforces learning and helps learners improve.
Prioritize the Learning, Not the Game
Learning-First Approach: The primary focus of this should always be on boosting the learning experience. Design the gamified elements to reinforce the learning plans. Avoid excessive gamification that distracts from the educational content.
Meaningful Challenges: Ensure that the challenges presented match all your goals. Develop plots where your team will have a chance to use their knowledge or problem-solving skills. The challenges must be relevant and meaningful to the plans.
Balance Competition and Collaboration: While gamification often includes competitive elements, it'sit's crucial to foster a collaborative learning environment. Incorporate opportunities for learners to work together, share knowledge, and collaborate on solving challenges.
Personalization: Consider the diverse learning needs and preferences of your team. Incorporate elements that allow learners to personalize their learning journey, such as choosing avatars, selecting learning paths, or setting goals. Personalization enhances engagement and motivation.
Be Clear on Criteria and Progression
Transparent Guidelines: Communicate the criteria for points, badges, or progressing to higher levels. Don'tDon't forget to offer guidelines and expectations so they understand how their performance is measured and rewarded.
Visible Progression: Make learners` advancement visible using indicators such as bars, achievement trackers, or leaderboards. Visualizing progress gives a feeling of accomplishment and motivates learners to continue learning.
Allow for Mastery: Incorporate opportunities for learners to demonstrate mastery of the content or skills. It could include mastery levels, where learners have to achieve a certain level of proficiency before advancing. Mastery-based progression encourages a deeper understanding of the subject matter.
Clear Rewards and Incentives: Define the rewards or incentives learners can earn through gamification. These can be tangible rewards such as certificates or digital badges or intangible rewards such as recognition or unlocking additional content. Make the rewards meaningful and aligned with the learning goals.
5 Most Effective E-Learning Games For Corporate Training
So, talking about examples of gamification in business, I want to share interesting, engaging, and motivating games that you can use for onboarding or training.
1. Gamified quizzes
A quiz is the simplest answer to how to gamify learning. An example of this approach is to offer learners to complete a quiz after providing them with useful materials. It can be a road filled with turns followed by questions. The quicker the learner provides the correct answer, the shorter their race lap time will be.
2. Learning through gaming
In this example, you can offer a learner to play an e-dice board game, assuming that a learner moves according to dice rolls and steps, resulting in a question. The correct answer gives a point or keeps the place. The wrong one takes the player several steps back or reduces points. It works great when uniting your workers in teams and making them compete.
3. Learning path
This training gamification example requires creating a virtual surrounding environment. You can use it for onboarding, where your remote employee walks into a virtual office. When entering every department room, they learn its functions, people, etc. You can adapt it to your specific use case.
4. Scavenger Hunt
This simple game can be run on your company's website and helps introduce learners to the desired material. For example, you can familiarize workers with products by arranging this game on your product catalog, asking them to search for specific items, words, etc. This one also works well when uniting learners into teams.
5. Scramble
This one comes to the rescue when you need to onboard a new worker into an established team with settled terminology and memes. Letting the newbie learn comfortably and in a gamified form is an excellent idea.
Summing up
Not all learning management systems (LMS) offer built-in gamified elements support. Choosing the right training partner software is not easy. Progressive and successful companies implemented it in their work process. Continuous learning and development directly affect any company's success.