59 10.3 Discussion
In K-12 education, gamification—taking features from game contexts and applying them to non-gaming contexts—has become popular for engaging students, personalizing learning experiences, and achieving skill development more interactively. With points, levels, badges, leaderboards, and other game mechanics, educators can create experiences to motivate and engage students and keep them around for more. As outlined in the research, this digital generation is more familiar with games, which is the main reason for the growing interest in gamification and research findings that identify the possibility that learning based on engagement can stimulate cognitive and emotional development (Kaur et al., 2020).
Gamification applications in K-12 settings have evolved from basic reward systems to much more robust pedagogically sound strategies. Digital tools like Kahoot, Classcraft, Duolingo, and Minecraft Education now make gamified learning available in a variety of forms, and teachers have several adaptable ways to teach several different subjects. Integrated into classrooms, these tools have been utilized to enrich fields from math and science to social studies and language arts, using gamified environments to foster self-paced learning as well as collaboration. In addition, (Sanchez et al., 2020) the growth of mobile-assisted learning has allowed for gamification in education and helped the use of apps to not only facilitate learning but also make it fun and allow students to interact both inside and outside of the classroom.