by Jean M. DiGiovanna, Founder, Workshop University
Gamification is “the concept of applying game-design thinking to non-game applications to make them more fun and engaging”. And, it’s much easier than you think. In this month’s newsletter, I have included below several types of games you can model your content after based on what you are trying to teach. I invite you to review your current workshops or webinars and see where you can convert the delivery into one of the games below and notice the difference in your attendees level of engagement and learning!
Trivial Pursuit
This is great fun to play at intervals during your workshop/webinar to lock in the learning. Spread out post-its across the room and put a slide up with a question and multiple choice answers based on something you have taught them. They answer the question on their post-it. Whoever gets the right answer gets X points. Each person self-scores and adds up their points at the end of the workshop/training. The person with the highest score gets a prize. (Have a few prizes available for people who tied or have a tie-breaker question ready). Polling on webinars supports this game very well.
Jeopardy
For information that is easily categorized, this is a great game. There are different PPT templates you can use on-line to insert the categories and “Who/What” questions into. Divide people into groups to play or do “popcorn” style and see who pops with the answer. Have a prize for the person/team who got the most correct answers.
Family Feud
This is great for team activity and fun. Have a set of questions prepared in advance that match the information you have been teaching. You are the host and each person on the team comes up to answer the question and compete against each other.
Scavenger Hunt
This is a game of speed where a team or individuals need to come up with as many items to match what you are asking for as possible in a specific amount of time. The team to come up with the most items wins (or unique items depending on the rules you want to use). This is great for information where there are many variations of something or lists of information.
Catch Phrase
This is great when you are locking in concepts or definitions of items. Get them into teams and the first person gets a word that you taught earlier. They have to define that word as best as possible to their team by acting it out and verbalizing it without saying the word itself or the start letter or something that rhymes with the word.
<Your Favorite Game>
Think about a favorite game you played when you were young or as an adult. It could be a board game as well. How could you take what you are teaching and model it after that game?
Pick one and go for it!
Take a look at your content. What kind of information are you teaching? Can it be categorized easily into buckets (for Jeopardy)? Are there specific questions you can come up with to test the learning (like Trivial Pursuit or Catch Phrase). Or are there concepts that are more free form where people can guess as many as possible or the top X amount in a specific amount of time? (Family Feud or Scavenger Hunt)
Cheers,
