Designing gamification for geometry in elementary schools: insights from the designers

Popularly used in marketing and business, gamification has been gaining interest in educational contexts for its potential to invigorate otherwise mundane or difficult processes. A gamified environment transfers motivational elements of games to learning activities thereby engaging learners in the learning task thus transforming dull classroom environments to smart ones. This paper presents the design process of a gamification intervention in geometry at elementary level, based upon Huang and Soman (Gamification of education. Research report series: behavioural economics in action, 29. Rothman School of Management, University of Toronto, Toronto, 2013) model. We describe how insights from various sources helped us to refine an intervention previously used in one school. The design focuses on gamifying the tangram, an unplugged resource, through incorporating game-based elements of leader boards, points/stars and challenge levels to motivate young learners individually and in teams. Cognitive and motivational scaffolding undergird five challenge levels to bring affordances to self and social elements for learner participation in increasingly complex geometry tasks. There are limited theoretical models to guide educational researchers, especially ones that do not require digital resources. This paper presents our insights and recommendations to support scaffolded learning in student-centred gamified learning environments.