In early 2011 I wrote an article that talked about the types of games being used in education, along with a few suggestions for categories and games within those categories. Today I'm going to take a look at gamification and education, specifically assessment.

First, some quick-and-dirty definitions. Gamification is taking the mechanics and dynamics of game environments and applying them to non-game activities. It was also without question the most over-used buzz word of 2010 AND 2011 (so much so that Wikipedia deleted the original gamification entry).

With assessments it's important to differentiate between formative and summative assessments. Formative assessments are assessments for learning - activities you do during a unit of work ('Use the information in your textbook to create a poster') to build knowledge and understanding, whereas summative assessments are assessments of learning - the tests, assignments, presentations or exams at the end of a unit of work where you demonstrate knowledge and understanding.

Let's start with a well-known game element: earning points. Having your mastery of skills and abilities within the game noted and rewarded is a deeply motivating experience. It affects the way you play the game and can create personal goals that are separate from the main plot.

In school the position is reversed. Assessment criteria have a scale that defines success as perfection, so every term you start with a mythical perfect score that every transgression or failure chips away at. This is demotivating at best.

American university professor Lee Sheldon famously used his Game Design class as a testing ground for a system that awards points for tasks completed throughout the course, with students beginning at zero and 'levelling' their way to an A+. He reported that everything from course completion to hand-in times to class attendance went up as the students saw the results of their work tallied and presented to them as the semester progressed.

Personally, I designed and set two different types of assessments for my students last term. One was a conventional assessment with marking criteria for 5 different elements, the other was split into small tasks, each of which had a defined 'point' value. Both types of assessments required research, analysis and critical thinking.

Result? The 'points-based' task had higher average marks and was handed in early by several students, who had found the sense of achievement associated with gaining points for completing each chunk more motivating than completing an entire assignment and then seeing how well they hadn't done on some parts.

The second gamification element I want to address was brought to my attention by the excellent folks over at Penny Arcade's Extra Credits. It doesn't usually feature on classic game dynamics lists, but it is vital for creating a lasting connection to a game. We're talking about agency.

Agency is the ability of the player to affect change in the game environment. All games contain a degree of choice - which gun to use, whether to buy better brakes or a faster engine etc - but the growing trend in games is to provide players with more than one avenue to engage with a given situation. RPG games are the classic example, with special mention to anything Bethesda has produced in recent years.

Now let's looks at school. When it comes to assessment, agency is pretty lacking. The way that students are expected to demonstrate knowledge of a subject is pretty uniform, and you are often penalised for doing anything outside existing parameters. There is a good reason for this - teachers are time-poor and being asked to grade dozens of different takes on a unit of work is asking for a headache.

There is a solution, or at least a middle ground. By splitting an assessment into sections, and then allowing the students several options for each section, you can create an assessment that combines choice with a more bounded way for the teacher to measure understanding. The options can be categorised based on notions such as different learning styles (I'm a fan of the VARK test) and you can either give the students total freedom or require them to select one option from each category - a great way to stretch students AND give them a chance to shine in their preferred style.

A few years ago my head of department and I designed an assessment for leaning like this for a unit of work that took us to the end of the year. Our motivation was partially desperation - even though the students were a lovely bunch we had doubts that they would stand for a post-exams assessment that didn't count towards their final grade. So we gave them at least four possible options for each of the four categories, many of them with an emphasis on class demonstrations or creating physical objects.

The results were... amazing. Even the most esoteric of tasks had kids willing to try them out, and we had students producing work with so much gusto that I was receiving anxious emails from parents wondering why their child was working so hard on something when reports had already gone out. I ended up creating special awards for my class to express my delight.

I've barely scratched the surface of a massive topic. If you've got a favourite game dynamic you think should have a place in the classroom, or have had an excellent gamified learning experience, say something in the comments below!